‘Oh.’ She imagined taking the sausages out of the oven and hurling them across the room, tipping the lentils into his lap, throwing the glasses against the wall so they shattered into a thousand glinting pieces, then marching out into the open weather, letting the wind rip through her.

‘You go ahead though.’

‘I’m not hungry either. Not any more.’

‘You should eat something. You look a bit peaky. I’ll have a bit too. A sausage,’ he added, wondering how he would be able to eat a single mouthful.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Fine. Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘You just seem a bit –’

‘A bit what?’

‘Manic, maybe.’

‘Probably the effect of Oxford Street. I’m fine. Completely fine. I’m sorry I wrecked our evening and left you to do everything. Were the girls OK?’

‘Yeah. I took them swimming so they were tired out.’

He looked at her pale, small, angry face, her grey eyes that glared at him, and guilt grabbed him round the throat, squeezed hard. He had to stop himself from howling like a wolf, from giggling madly and putting his hands over his face to sob.

Irene put food on two plates – a blistered sausage spilling its stuffing like an old pillow, a grey sludge of over-cooked lentils – and they sat on the sofa in front of the television. Adrian poured himself another glass of wine and turned on the video. There they were, like an old married couple, eating supper in front of the tv on a Thursday night. After fifteen minutes, Irene’s cropped head tipped onto his shoulder and he could hear from her breathing that she had fallen asleep. He carefully put her untouched plate onto the floor and shifted his position so that she lay against him more comfortably. She was light as a child, as a bird or a bundle of twigs.

He sat there like that for the rest of the film, though for much of the time the images on the screen were blurred and meaningless, and the ones that flooded his mind were of Frankie: the perfumed fall of her hair and the smell of her peachy skin and the feeling of being turned inside out by yowling lust. His skin prickled with memory and anticipation. Irene mumbled something in her sleep and he put out a hand and stroked her coppery hair.

Five

‘What happens if you’re awake when Father Christmas comes?’

Irene forced the knobbly trunk of the tree they’d bought into the stand they’d sent off for years ago from a mail-order catalogue and it listed towards the window, sprinkling needles that would later work their way into the children’s socks.

‘I’m not sure,’ she said, standing back. ‘But it’s a good idea to go to sleep early on Christmas Eve just in case.’

‘Only babies –’