Taken aback, she tried to smile. ‘Don’t know what you’re on about. Why would I be grieving?’

Neil shrugged. ‘I’m still not getting the whole story.’ He wagged a finger. ‘You should know by now, you can’t keep secrets from Uncle Neil. Not for ever, anyway.’

Connie didn’t know what to say. But before she had a chance to offer yet another denial, he threw up his hands in horror. ‘You don’t think you got this lurgy because of our swim, do you? It was bloody freezing that morning.’

She laughed, on safer ground now. ‘Of course not. Cold swims are supposed to boost your immune system.’ She took a sip of tea, which, like everything else these days, tasted rancid and bitter. ‘It’ll be something I picked up from the trains.’

‘Hmm …’ Neil was eyeing her. ‘So you’re not going to tell me?’

She heard the front door open. ‘Nothing to tell,’ she said softly, before rising to get her husband a cup for his tea.

Later, when she was alone, she thought about what Neil had said. Am I grieving? Sex with anyone, even Jared, was the last thing currently on her mind, but she was forced to acknowledge that it was a loss. She had gone to a place with him where she’d never been before. Knowing she would never go there again was a grief she was not allowed, but that did not make it any less real.

She had also lost her peace of mind. Devan was being so loving, so solicitous – she could not have asked for a better husband. But guilt made her jumpy and Jared still encroached, unwittingly, upon her thoughts. She wanted to be fully present with Devan, but memories snuck back through the cracks, unbidden, like mice into an empty house. It was hardly surprising, thinking about it, that she’d fallen victim to the nearest virus. She remembered Devan saying he just wanted things to go back to how they were. Even knowing the impossibility of this, Connie wanted it too, more than anything else in the world.

18