I turned away from her on the mattress to give her privacy, listened intently. She smiled, I heard it, the smile, her neurons firing, heard her wondering what to write back.

‘That’s good about Oliver’s reading assignment,’ I said.

‘Sorry? Oh, yeah. He’s doing really well.’ She closed her phone cover, came round the bed, sat a few inches from my head. At times like these, in positions like these, other husbands might pull off their wives’ jeans, give them something to smile about, but …

I stared at my phone. ‘Do you have anything exciting coming up?’

‘Alicia from work wants to go salsa dancing,’ she said. ‘She wants me to show her some crazy Latin moves. I’ve actually been thinking about giving classes again. Remember that woman I taught in Thornbury?’

‘Yeah, she was crackers.’ I laughed, a fake. ‘What about romantically?’

‘Oh, no. Nothing planned.’

J’accuse!

She asked, ‘Do you think Zac’ll call?’

It was 7.38. ‘Maybe,’ I said.

‘God, I hope he’s OK.’

He’d shown us the information he’d been given on Loddon: a campus-style prison with a secure perimeter, a wide range of activities … He’d given us the visitor guide too, but made us promise not to come. Which was fine – it was an hour and a half’s drive up the Calder Freeway.

7.42 pm.

‘So, Biddy said she might want to come away with us at Christmas. To your great-aunt’s house.’

‘Yeah, you mentioned that in your text.’

I’d been avoiding the conversation for a month.

I scrolled, controlled. ‘Would you be OK with that?’

‘If that’s what you want.’

I looked up. ‘That’s not an answer, Sarah.’

She sighed. ‘I can’t really win, Chris, can I? If I say no, you’re going to hit the glass ceiling, and if I say yes, that’s obviously going to have an effect on me and the kids.’

Nostrils flaring, shallow breathing – rein it in. ‘How’s it going to affect the kids?’

‘It’s meant to be time away as a family.’

‘What if I see Biddy as part of our family?’

‘Well, that’s you, Chris. It’s not me.’

‘Water, Mummy,’ Oliver shouted from the bedroom.

‘Go get some then,’ Sarah shouted. ‘You’re old enough to do it yourself.’

His feet padding through the hallway, water gushing from the kitchen tap, feet slapping back to his and Sophie’s room.

7.49 pm. My phone not ringing, Sarah’s phone not ringing. I put the phone down, looked at Sarah. ‘Sophie mentioned just the other day that she loves Biddy. Olly dotes on her, and Biddy loves them, too. We keep laughing about the bath we had, the four of us, because –’

‘You had a bath together?’

‘Yeah. A couple of weekends ago in Biddy’s house.’

‘A bath? All four of you?’