‘You’re just throwing us on the rubbish heap, are you?’ she shouted, loud enough to make the strings of her throat hurt, a broken lute. ‘Is that it? Is it? I’ve done so much, given so much, everything I had in me to give, I gave to you. And you’re just throwing us away?’

‘Not the girls,’ he said softly. ‘Just you.’

She heard herself give a violent, cracked yell. The next thing she knew she was on the bed, on top of his naked body, clawing at his face. She ripped a nail along his cheek and sank a fist into his neck before he caught her by the wrists and wrenched her away from him.

‘Jesus,’ he said in disgust. ‘Look at you. Fuck.’ He screwed up his face contemptuously. She noted with satisfaction that there was blood trickling down his jaw.

‘I think you’d better go,’ said Frankie softly. ‘Come on, Irene.’

When Irene struggled to her feet, she saw that Frankie’s face was full of embarrassment and pity. The room seemed to tilt; the air roared in her ears.

‘Don’t talk to me,’ she said, hard and loud. ‘Don’t you dare open your fat mouth. I’m here to see my husband – the man who, fool that I was, I’ve been supporting for years and years while he tried to make it as an actor despite the fact he can’t fucking act; the man whose three little daughters are lying asleep in their beds right now, never suspecting their darling daddy’s here proving his manhood by fucking his friend’s randy little sister.’

‘Get out,’ said Adrian.

‘Don’t worry. You can go back to screwing. You were never very good at it anyway.’

She reached out her hand and gave the bottle on the bedside table a little shove, so the red wine poured a bloody patch onto the cream-coloured, thick-piled, smug carpet.

‘Oops, silly me,’ she said. ‘What an ugly mess. I don’t think it will ever come out, do you?’

She pulled her inside-out jersey down over her jeans and straightened her shoulders, then walked stiffly to the door, aware of both of them watching her go.

‘Leave the key, will you?’ said Frankie.

Irene dropped the key on the table, beside the vase of flowers and the bowl of oranges; she picked the dahlias out of the vase and wrung their necks till they snapped, then flung them, stalks dripping, onto the floor. She lifted a perfect orange and overarmed it, a puckered planet hurtling through the space and exploding through the window, leaving a lovely circle in the glass. Irene gave a delighted screech of laughter.