Greg was at home. His bike was leaning against the porch. I hid behind a hawthorn bush and had a look.

He’d painted the front door blue. A new creeper had been planted against the house; even from this distance I could see its bamboo stake, with the label still attached. On either side of the path the lawn had been mowed; I could smell the grass. We’d never done much to the garden, but over the past year Greg had evidently been busy, a busy bee, readying the place for his lady love. There was a new raised bed to one side, the gardening fork still stuck in it, and a regimented row of pots under the sitting-room window. Good luck with that; it faced north and never got any sun.

The place was immaculate. Greg was a neat man. He ironed tea towels. I wondered how he would cope with Azra’s slovenly ways.

Of course I knew the answer. He wouldn’t give a toss.

We’d had the cottage for thirty years. That first summer … oh the joy. The children were young then and spilled out of the car, released from the long journey. Skipper, our dog at the time, raced around the garden and relieved himself against the water butt. I remembered moments of such intense happiness they still caught at my throat. Silly things. The time some sheep got in, the four of us waving our arms and yelling, Skipper herding them out through a gap in the fence, their foolish bottoms bobbing with dung, like baubles on a Christmas tree, as they jostled in the exit. The two of us painting the living room, singing ‘Mockingbird’ in harmony, the children’s shouts drifting in from the garden. At night, the moths flying through the window and fixing themselves like brooches to the wall. Our own Aladdin’s Cave.

The cottage wasn’t picturesque—a plain, stucco farm-worker’s dwelling—but we loved it. When the tide was out we’d run down the lane, have a swim and lie on the tiny pebbly beach. There was hardly anyone around, even in high summer. Above us reared the cliffs, chattering with birds: crows and seagulls, hidden in their nests, gossiping and squabbling. ‘Just like suburban housewives,’ said Greg, squinting upwards. ‘Do shut up, Mavis, she’ll say the same about you.’

I stood in the lane, unable to move. This was no longer my place. The past was gone. Those joyous, sunburnt children were middle-aged, jerky blurs on Skype, mouthing out of sync, miles across the world, with their own troubled lives. I hardly knew them any more.

‘What are you doing here?’

I swung round. Greg was standing behind me. His hair was damp and his T-shirt dark with sweat.

‘What are you doing?’ His voice was squeaky with alarm. ‘Has something happened to Azra?’

‘Of course not!’ I snapped. ‘She would’ve phoned you. Anyway, I don’t speak to her any more.’

There was a silence. Greg stood there, panting like a puppy. His hair seemed thinner. His beaky face was sheeny with perspiration. Already, he had altered. So much time had passed that he’d turned into a sinewy stranger out for a run, his head filled with his own dreams, almost a year’s worth of them. It seemed inconceivable that for most of our adult lives we’d slept in the same bed.