‘Do you want to speak to everyone together?’ I asked Singh, nodding at the teenagers who were watching our conversation eagerly, and he understood my meaning. Sign language can be easy to ‘overhear’ even from a distance, so he might as well include them in the conversation.

Singh explained that he’d talk to them all together, and the deputy head moved over to where the students were sitting. I could feel Mike’s eyes on me, but I avoided his gaze. If I’d had time to prepare myself for seeing him, perhaps I could have kept my cool and looked at him with dignity, but as it was I didn’t know how to react. He’d always had his own version of events, so his perception of our break-up might be very different from mine.

On the day I last saw him, I had been in hospital for two days, and then by the time I was discharged the following day he was gone from the flat, leaving me not only with scars but also a mountain of debt. Anna wouldn’t let me sink into the pit of despair that lay in front of me, and dragged me back from the brink. She was also the one who helped me find a way to avoid selling the flat, though even now my finances were still in dire straits because of the mess he’d left me in. What was he doing here, working in a school for the deaf? The last job he’d had when I knew him was in a call centre, though he’d lived off my earnings for the last two years of our relationship. He hadn’t been able to sign before we met, had never even met a deaf person until I introduced him to my sister, Anna, and Gemma, my best friend. I couldn’t put my finger on why, but it rankled that he’d taken the skills I’d taught him and used them to get himself a better job when I was the one still struggling financially.

Shaking myself, I focused on the task in hand. I couldn’t let Mike’s presence affect the way I did my job. It would be humiliating if I screwed up just because he was there, watching me.

‘I need you all to pay attention, please,’ Singh said, addressing the group. He paused to give me time to interpret what he’d said, and I was pleased to see how easily we slipped back into a good working partnership.