‘You cheated on me for five years,’ I said. ‘You stole my husband, you ruined my life and then, just because you feel like it, you waltz back here months and months later and bang on my door without even bothering to phone, and now you’re telling me what I should be doing with my life. For fuck’s sake, Azra, why don’t you just fuck off and leave me alone?’

A moment passed. She cupped the back of her head and stroked it—a new gesture, this, as if ruminating on her skull.

‘You didn’t realise, my love, did you?’ she said.

‘Realise what?’

The air thickened. ‘What this was all about.’

I pushed back my chair and got up. ‘Want a drink?’

She grabbed my arm. ‘Look at me, Pru.’

She pulled me down. The rain had stopped drilling on the roof. A snap, and Flossie escaped through the cat flap.

She said: ‘It wasn’t really about him at all.’

My throat dried. ‘What do you mean?’

She leaned across the table and took my hand. ‘It was you I wanted.’

‘Me?’

Her voice was husky. ‘All the time, all those years.’ She turned my hand over and stroked my palm. ‘When I was fucking him, I was fucking you.’

She raised her head and looked at me. The blood rushed to my face.

She stood up, came round to me and took my hand. ‘Come upstairs.’

In the bedroom she turned her back to me. We didn’t say a word. I stood behind her. Slowly I unzipped the little black dress and it fell to the floor.

Afterwards, as we lay in bed, she murmured: ‘I told you, didn’t I?’

‘Told me what?’

‘That it would be better with a woman.’

Three

Three

It was always about you and me, she said. I’d had no idea how right she was. It was the most natural thing in the world to explore each other, skin to skin, tongue to tongue. Over the next few days the past was forgotten. All the recriminations dissolved away. All that was irrelevant. At night we slept soundly, Azra’s long dry legs around mine, her breasts pressed against my back.