She wasn’t sure. “I haven’t moved them,” she said.

But later he found them on the coffee table, underneath one of Katrina’s books. She was certain she hadn’t put them there—almost certain.

“It doesn’t matter,” John said, when she protested. He held out his hands wearily. “At least we’ve found them now. But you’re getting so scatty, love.”

This was true—she was often tired, often forgetful. And yet sometimes after one of these incidents the idea would come to her that he might be misplacing his things deliberately: moving them himself and then accusing her. Whenever this thought occurred to her, even if only fleetingly, she knew she must really be losing her grip.

It wasn’t until years later, when she was pregnant with Beth, that Katrina saw, or perhaps allowed herself to see, the full cold sweep of her husband’s nature. She had realized not long after Tommy’s birth that she was afraid of him. But now she saw it all. Although he never shouted, was never physically aggressive, she began to see that his contempt was a violence in itself. Katrina felt it wind around her and constrict her breath. And his scorn wasn’t reserved for Katrina alone. It stretched wide and encompassed almost every other person he knew, from his colleagues at the accountancy firm to his own brother (Malcolm, John said, was slow and unimaginative; a bore; good with his hands but not good at much else). Everything with him became a fierce struggle to prove his superiority, the loathsome deficiency of others.

Katrina tried to sneer with him at the people and things he despised. He made fun of Fiona, who he said was a pathetic busybody, and Katrina could see his point, though it pained her when Fiona had been so kind. She thought Malcolm was kind too, and she liked his gentleness, though she knew he wasn’t quick and clever like John. She tried to appreciate the distinction between them. John said she wasn’t sharp herself, not discerning enough about people, and it was true, certainly, that she was more easily pleased than him. It seemed a comfort at first when his scorn was directed outwards, not at her. But before long, Katrina felt its polluting effects within herself. Everywhere she looked she began to see inadequacy and weakness as he did.