In March, when the daffodils were out all along the street, Adrian was offered another role in a two-part television drama that would be made in the summer. He rang her at work to tell her, his voice thick with excitement. At lunch Irene went out and bought a bottle of champagne – real champagne, not just sparkling wine. She cooked a chicken for supper and, after the girls were in bed, she shoved the litter of the day out of sight, swept washing into the machine, drew all the curtains and lit the candles on the table and the night lights on the mantelpiece and window ledges. She put on a silk shirt she hadn’t worn for years. She stood in front of the mirror and brushed her hair, then put in earrings and smiled at herself.

He was late home. She phoned his mobile and left a message. Then another, in a politely brittle voice. After a bit, she took the chicken out of the oven and made a salad. She prowled round the children’s rooms. She kicked a door violently, slammed cupboards and banged pans, though there was no one to hear her. Then, to her disgust and surprise, she found she was thumping her head on the table: bang, bang, bang. It echoed through the house, through her skull, which like an eggshell might crack open, a thick yolk of anger welling out.

She sat up numbly, feeling the throbbing subside.

‘Stupid,’ she said out loud. ‘Bonkers. Who’d live with a bonkers woman like you?’

She stood up and to take her mind off waiting, she took her violin and went to the tiny room at the end of the house, where nobody slept and boxes of old baby clothes and books stood along the wall. She shut the door so as not to disturb the girls, tightened her bow, rubbed rosin along its length so powder fell in a fine drift, and then she played a scale. She started on the G string and climbed all the way up, trying to get the spacing correct. The bow wobbled and scraped on the bridge; the notes wavered and shrieked. The violin dug into her neck and her arms ached. Her fingers were stiff and flat. Tomorrow she would ring up the number of a teacher that Lisa had given her; she needed lessons, that was for sure. She stood up as straight as she could in the little room and drew her bow, flat and smooth, along the D string. She felt the note running through her body, and then heard the door open and shut again, a voice calling her name. It was past ten o’clock.