She remembered the days when her husband had been up at six thirty every morning, off to work with a spring in his step, totally involved with his surgery, his patients, the team with whom he worked. He’d arrive home exhausted, full of the dramas of a long day … although still interested in whatever Connie had been up to, how school had gone for Caitlin. I never complained, she thought, about his long hours, his dedication to work. I never suggested he give it up for me, even when Caitlin was small and I was virtually a single mum. It was just a given that she would keep the home fires burning. But he was not now returning the favour.

‘When did we lose touch?’ she asked eventually, pressing his hands as they lay clasped in his lap. He shrugged as she squeezed them. ‘Devan?’

His fists just sat there beneath hers, unresponsive, as if he couldn’t feel her touch – or couldn’t bear it – and she pulled away. After what seemed like an eternity to Connie, he raised his head, his blue eyes dark with reproach. ‘I don’t know where we’re going, you and me.’

She felt a powerful judder shoot through her body, as if she’d walked into a lamp post. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Surely you can see.’ He gazed forlornly at her. ‘This is supposed to be our time, Con. We’ve worked all our lives. Now, we’ve got, what, twenty years left? And that’s if we’re lucky. Probably even fewer fit years when we can do stuff. But you intend to be gone for at least half of that.’ He sighed theatrically. ‘It tells me something. You’d prefer to be off with a bunch of strangers than here with me.’ He stopped but he hadn’t finished. ‘It’s making me think …’

Ignoring the exaggeration of her time away, Connie was surprised at how steady her voice sounded as she asked, ‘Think what, Devan?’ She knew in her heart of hearts that he was being unfair. But she also felt conflicted. Even Neil seemed to think her husband had a point.

This whole issue with retirement reminds me, she thought, of how Devan never breathed a word about me smoking when we first met. If, back then, he’d tried to make her quit, she would probably have taken years to do so. But he’d never mentioned it, despite apparently being disgusted by every puff, and she gave up soon after. If he’d taken the same approach as he did then, kept his thoughts to himself and let her retire in her own time – given her something to come home to, indeed – she would probably have set a date in the near future. But the more he backed her into a corner, the more she wanted to work till she dropped.

‘About us,’ Devan said. ‘About what our marriage means to you.’