Irene winced; she hadn’t expected him to be quite that specific. She held the date in her mind for a few seconds, feeling it set off small electric connections, then pushed it away. Later, she knew, she would pull it out and let it demolish her past. She had the distant sense that she wasn’t ready for this – like an actor who hasn’t learnt her lines properly, she wasn’t rising to the occasion. The roof should be falling in on their lives, thick dust rising around them, the screech of hopes being splintered and wrecked, the metal-on-metal whine of a tearing future. Instead, they stayed on the skin of things, speaking tight words, exchanging facts.

‘Is it still going on?’ she asked, cool with the unreality of it, listening to her composed voice.

He waited before replying. ‘Yes.’

‘The girls.’

‘I know. Do you think I don’t know?’

‘Do you love her?’

‘Irene …’

‘Do you love her?’

‘I love you too.’

There was pity in his eyes. She couldn’t bear that. She felt anger crackle along her skin, lick through her veins.

‘Love. You wanker, you don’t know what the word means,’ she said. ‘You have no idea.’

‘Irene, don’t be like this. We need to talk calmly.’

‘Ha!’

‘Please.’

‘Are you leaving me? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘No! No, of course not! I don’t … I can’t – I love you. And the children.’

His mobile phone buzzed on the table between them. He grabbed it up, looked at the name on its screen and spoke breathlessly: ‘Yes, but I can’t talk, I can’t talk. Later.’ And banged it back on the table, where it lay like a small ticking bomb between them.

‘I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been,’ said Irene. ‘You must have been laughing at me all this time. Such a credulous fool.’

‘No! It’s not like that. And Frankie feels aw –’

Irene put her hands over her ears as if the name was poison that was being poured into her brain. ‘Don’t you dare tell me about how awful you’ve both been feeling all this time. Don’t you fucking dare.’