Connie’s heart missed a beat. Please, no, she thought, trying not to run from the kitchen, the globe singeing the skin of her palm.

‘What did you get?’ Devan was at her shoulder, peering at Jared’s gift.

Silently she showed him because she couldn’t speak. If it wouldn’t make her appear completely mad, she would have hurled it straight into the bin. Instead she watched her husband tip the globe upside down and then the right way up, gazing at the gently falling snow.

‘Dear Audrey,’ Connie said. ‘One of my passengers. Her grandson is obsessed with them so she buys one wherever she goes. I told her about Bash and she said I should start a collection for him too.’ She didn’t look at her husband as she lied with unnerving assurance. ‘How kind. She must have got the shop to send it.’ The shop outside which Jared had been sitting, Polish newspaper in hand, the sun burnishing his hair gold.

‘Good idea,’ Devan said, handing the globe back to her. ‘Give him a sense of the outside world. Although he’s a bit young to appreciate that yet.’

Connie stuffed the globe back into the bubble wrap, then the box. She didn’t want to see it ever again. Neither did she have any intention of giving it to her grandson, this emblem of her infidelity. The thought made her shudder.

‘We can surprise him with it, next time we go up,’ Devan, back at the sink, was saying.

That night, Connie took a long time getting ready. She wanted to look good for Devan, but her efforts felt hollow, a sham. Like disguising a second-hand gift in pretty paper and a bow. When she finally entered the sitting room, where her husband was sitting, smart in a pressed white shirt and navy chinos, she felt ragged with fatigue.

‘You look lovely,’ Devan said, smiling at her. Putting his phone away, he sprang up from the sofa and came towards her, pulling her into his arms and looking down at her, his gaze tender. ‘I’m a lucky man,’ he said, kissing her firmly on the lips.

I’m not at all lovely, she wanted to shout. She hugged him fiercely, pressing away her deception. It seemed oddly difficult, getting used to this new, romantically charged incarnation of her husband. But she told herself it would get easier. She had, after all, loved Devan for a lifetime.

It was a soft July evening, the sun low on the horizon, partially covered with light cloud. She shivered, although it wasn’t cold, as they walked the short distance to the pub. Devan had his hand clamped securely round hers as they drew level with the Skittle House. But he pulled her past the door.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

He grinned at her but said nothing.