This made her smile. Her husband wasn’t comfortable with confessional mode. ‘I’ve tried to analyse what happened to me when I stopped working.’ He paused. ‘It’s hard to articulate … but it was like being trapped in myself. I couldn’t see or feel or care about anyone or anything around me. On one level I knew I was pissing you off, I knew I was letting myself go, but it was all happening at a remove … It didn’t really touch me.’

Connie nodded. She didn’t totally understand, but it made sense.

‘I know you were frustrated with me because you thought I was depressed and in denial about it. But I kept telling myself that none of what I’d been feeling fitted my professional view of depression.’ He gave a wry laugh. ‘Shows how crap we professionals are when it comes to self-diagnosis.’

Devan fell silent, even his hands now still, his head bowed again.

‘So … something changed?’ Connie asked cautiously.

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know exactly. It was like I’d reached the bottom. There was no feeling at all. I wasn’t even scared, lying in that no man’s land. Then I woke up one morning and realized I didn’t feel like crying. Which was progress in itself.’ He gave a short laugh, raised his hands in the air. ‘This probably all sounds loopy. Maybe not drinking for a week helped, who knows? I’ve been seriously knocking it back for a while, as you know.’

She nodded, waited for him to continue.

‘I even felt like getting out of bed. I was suddenly desperate to. Which may sound small, but it was huge for me.’

‘I wish you’d been able to let me in, Devan, not felt you had to go through it alone. It’s been really hard, seeing you so unhappy.’ Her words sounded uncomfortably false to herself, in light of how little thought she’d given her husband during the Polish tour. But she meant it. The months of watching him suffering like that had been agonizing. Now, remembering Jared, guilt hit her, like a smack in the face.

‘Yeah, well, we haven’t been exactly on the same page recently.’

Connie nodded in agreement. She was trying to take in what her husband was saying. After battling for so long, Devan’s sudden moment of epiphany was bewildering. Like leaning on a heavy door until suddenly it gives way and you fall flat on your face.

‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘in the last few days I’ve slowly begun to appreciate things again … like sunshine … bacon.’ He frowned, adding, ‘You know you’ve got a lot of fans out there, Connie.’

She gave him a questioning look, puzzled by the non-sequitur.

‘Jill, Gloria, Stacy, Neil … They’ve seen what’s been going on between us.’