Over at the airport, having said goodbye to Stephen and thanked him for dropping them off – he was a good lad, he really was – Jeanie wheeled her suitcase up to the check-in desk without a backward glance. Dramatic chords rumbled in her head, an ominous crescendo building as she came to a decision. ‘There’s been a change of plan, I’m afraid,’ she said crisply to the man behind the check-in counter, showing him her boarding pass. ‘My husband is no longer able to come with me.’

Harry gasped. ‘I . . . Jeanie!’ he cried in dismay.

The man behind the counter looked from Jeanie to her husband. ‘Um . . .’

‘Yes, it’s a real shame,’ Jeanie went on. ‘But he’s going back to our house now, to think about what he’s done. And I’ll be taking the holiday alone.’ Harry opened his mouth, but she rounded on him with unexpected ferocity. ‘Don’t you dare say a word,’ she warned, poking a finger at him. ‘Not a word.’

Once again the man behind the counter looked from Jeanie to Harry, doubt writ large on his face. ‘Right,’ he said after an agonized moment. ‘So it’s just the one case to check in today then, is it?’

‘Yes, that’s right, just the one.’ Jeanie presented her passport, then turned back to her husband. ‘I’ll see you in a week,’ she said coldly. ‘If I decide to come back, that is.’

‘Jeanie,’ protested Harry. ‘Please. We need to talk. This is our second honeymoon!’

His wife stared him down. ‘It’s not our second honeymoon any more,’ she told him. ‘It’s my holiday now. And if you want me ever to forgive you, then you can jolly well bugger off home and leave me to get my flight. Without you. Because you’re not welcome.’

The check-in assistant’s eyes boggled. He glanced at Harry worriedly, seeming unsure what to say. A few silent seconds passed. ‘Um . . . So if you could put your case on the scale please,’ he said timidly to Jeanie.

‘No problem,’ she replied, just as Harry stepped forward to help her. She shooed him away as if he were an irritating bluebottle. ‘I can manage, thank you. Please go now. I’ll see you in a week.’

Harry and the check-in assistant looked at one another again. The fearful shrug from the younger man seemed to say, There’s no arguing with this one, mate. Harry bit his lip, trying not to think about the turquoise hotel pool they’d admired in the brochure, the dark-blue trunks he’d bought especially, the new World War II thriller he’d been planning to read on the plane. He knew when he was beaten. He recognized that determined set to his wife’s shoulders, that Just-you-try-it look in her eye, that pointy finger. Game over, his grandchildren would say.