‘How did you put up such a front, Charlotte?’ he asks me. ‘How did you not say when you first heard that song on the radio that you knew him so well, when we danced and sang along to it here in our own kitchen, when Sophie suggested going to hear him sing in a massive arena? There were so many times when you could have told me about his big love story with you and the link to Matthew’s accident but you didn’t! Have you something to tell me about the two of you? Is there something you don’t want to admit still going on in your head with him? I don’t get it. I just don’t get it, Charlotte. You’re a really good actor, I’ll give you that.’

And I’m also a liar and a cheat with my sneaky ways of staying silent.

I knew I didn’t deserve someone like Jack. I hear my mother again reminding me how I earn so much and then throw it all away.

‘I mean, who even is this guy?’ he asks, his eyes widening now as a million thoughts go through his head. ‘How did you get ready here last night, all dressed up for our night out, knowing all along that the singer in the band “broke your heart” and was a catalyst in your brother’s accident and you didn’t even mention it? I can’t understand it and I don’t know if I ever will! That’s messed-up shit, Charlotte! Why didn’t you just tell me? Do you still have feelings for him? Do you?’

I feel tears coming, but there’s no point crying now. In my silence over Tom I managed to create this big web of lies and now I’ve hurt my husband, the person I love more than anyone else in the world.

‘I didn’t know where to start,’ I say to him.

‘How about just with the truth?!’ he says, his voice rising up a few notches, louder than I’ve ever heard him speak to me before. ‘How about telling me that the lead singer in the band we spent all of last night listening to was in fact your ex-boyfriend and that his history with your family is so complicated that he had to flee Dublin and make a new start rather than hang around and mop up the mess he helped to make here?’

He paces the floor now while I stand here feeling dumb and stupid in my dressing gown.

‘He didn’t flee,’ I tell him, in a monotone voice, like a school kid caught playing truant who has given up and pleaded guilty as charged. ‘He got an audition in London. He wanted me to go with him but I didn’t want to leave Matthew. We drifted apart … and then I met you.’