I don’t think I’ve spoken much since we left our seats. I can’t. Even though I can’t wait to escape, I strangely feel like I’ve left a part of me inside the arena and that part of me doesn’t want to go home yet. I was hoping for closure, but instead I’ve ripped open a gaping wound inside me that I thought was tightly sewn up and well healed. Maybe if I’d seen him properly it would have helped? Or if I’d spoken to him?

I look back at the arena as we drive away into the night, across the hum of the city and onto the motorway on our way home.

It was the song. I was doing really well until he sang the song.

‘I can’t believe you didn’t mention before that the singer was in Matthew’s band?’ says Jack as he slows down on approach to a toll bridge. ‘That’s pretty awesome! Does Matthew know one of his guys made it so big? I’ve never heard him mention it. Strange that he wouldn’t.’

I search in my purse for loose change and hand it to Jack, who gives it to the cashier and drives on through the toll. A Blind Generation song comes on the radio and I quickly change the channel. Too quickly, perhaps.

Jack glances at me.

‘I didn’t make the link until he said it, either,’ I say to Jack, kicking myself for lying to my husband. I don’t want to talk about this now. Jack is leaving tomorrow to go to the other side of the world for ten whole days and I can’t bring this up before he goes. It’s all too complicated. I don’t want to hurt him, and I don’t want to hurt myself any more than I’m already feeling now.

‘It might be hard for Matthew to see his former drummer taste such fame when he missed out, I suppose,’ Jack says, totally oblivious to the bigger picture. ‘It’s so sad to think it could have been him up there, but instead he’s playing pub gigs in Galway.’

I look out the window onto the darkness of the road that flashes past us.

‘Maybe that’s why he hasn’t mentioned it,’ I mutter, trying my best to think of something else I can say to change the subject.