My last uncomplicated sex with Sarah had been two years earlier. Giving, taking each other for granted. Getting out of bed and sitting together on the sofa afterwards, watching Oliver and Sophie squish Play-Doh into the carpet. A call – her friend Larissa from New Zealand.

Sarah’s eyes widening. ‘What? No. What’s happened?’

Larissa’s voice – tinny, distant.

‘Oh no, Larissa, no, no, no.’ Sarah getting up, hurrying to the bedroom, closing the door. Her muffled voice.

Oliver and Sophie looking at me. Me smiling at them.

Silence, then a drawn-out wail. ‘Noooooooooooooooooo.’

Me standing from the sofa, pushing the living-room door closed, getting onto the floor with the kids, grabbing some Play-Doh.

‘Is Mummy sad, Dadda?’

‘Oh, yeah, maybe.’

‘That’s sad, Daddy.’

‘Yeah, it is, sweetheart.’

Nikau from New Zealand was dead – it was hard to compute. He’d loomed so large.

They’d been in touch just a couple of months earlier, after years of no contact. I’d encouraged Sarah to email him because I wanted to challenge the myth. As a concept, Nikau was unconquerable. In the flesh, if they got that far again, he might expose his Achilles heel.

Another part of me wanted their love to be reciprocal. Sarah leaving me would be a tragedy I could work with, especially if I kept the kids.

‘Their mum must be proud,’ a beautiful waitress might say.

‘Their mum’s … gone,’ I’d say, looking handsome and trying to transmit sexually available widowerhood.

In my best moments, I didn’t begrudge Sarah her hypothetical sex life given our parental one had gone the way of so many. She should contact Nikau – go on, Sarah, live a little.

My mother was sick at the time, knew what was coming, because it was always the same: life fell away. Sarah wanting Nikau was a rope to hang on to. And so, we had. And then I’d feel silly and let go. And then I’d grab on again, try to pull myself up. I needed Nikau as much as Sarah did.

‘You’ve been thinking about him,’ I’d said, a few months before his suicide. I hadn’t mentioned him for a year or so, but we always knew who ‘him’ was.

‘How do you know?’ she’d said.

From secretly reading her dream journals, of course, but even without those it was a safe bet. She’d nodded, burst into tears, confessed she was still in love with him, always had been, always would be. It was nothing against me – she loved me too.