Every time she went away these days – even if only for a week – she hoped, in her absence, things might shift for Devan. Hoped he might begin to shake off the pall of lethargy that broke her heart. Hoped to see the light in his eyes again. Her trips were like a bubble. She would escape into another world, swept up in round-the-clock responsibility for the tour and its passengers, the extraordinary scenery, the diverse smells, the delicious local food – even the sun’s rays seeming to fall differently abroad. Her problems with Devan faded into the background for those few short days. But coming home, however much she looked forward to it, forced her to face up to reality again.

The house was as messy as Connie had anticipated – sofa cushions squashed to Devan’s shape, newspapers strewn, a dirty wine glass on the coffee table, some dried-up olive stones in a ramekin. She took a deep breath as she entered the cosy farmhouse kitchen at the back of the house, where they’d spent a lot of family time when Caitlin – named after one of Devan’s Irish grandmothers – was growing up. It wasn’t bad, she conceded, casting an eye over the worktops and range, the oak refectory table. But Devan had never got to grips with surface wiping: the cooker was spattered from the endless fry-ups in which he’d no doubt been indulging, the worktop strewn with toast crumbs and greasy smears, tea and coffee stains ringing the area around the kettle, a pile of used teabags mouldering on a saucer.

She stopped herself seizing a cloth and getting down to it immediately, knowing she was more pernickety than some and not wanting to wade in the second she was through the door in such an obviously censorious fashion. She would unpack first, have the bath she’d been longing for. She didn’t want to pick a fight on her first night back.

‘Think I’ll go up. Been a long day,’ Connie said later, pulling herself off the sofa and yawning as she reached for her reading glasses on the side table. They’d spent the evening with a bowl of ready-meal shepherd’s pie, frozen peas and ketchup in front of the next episode of a Belgian-police box set. Devan had held it over while she was away, although now she couldn’t remember a single thing about who’d been bumped off or why – and was too tired to concentrate anyway.

Devan glanced up from his phone – which, these days, seemed to have become a physical extension of his hand. ‘I’m sure it has,’ he said absentmindedly, but made no move to join her. ‘I might stay up for a bit.’