Then we’d had our picnic. Greg had made a Spanish tortilla, which Lucy refused to eat because it had olives in it. He’d been snippy. She’d cried. I’d come to her defence. Max, who’d been reading his Beano throughout, knocked over his mug of Ribena and it splashed on Greg’s trousers. Greg was furious. I said it was just a little splash and would come out in the wash. Greg said they were ruined. Max burst into tears. Greg said he shouldn’t have been reading the Beano, he’d been reading the bloody Beano for the last bloody hour, he hadn’t climbed a single tree or joined in anything, what was the point of coming all this way if he was only going to read his blithering comic? Come on, we’re going home. No, we can’t, I said, the tyres are wrecked—a feeble joke that fell flat, as Greg accused me of thinking he was boring, but who’d have to take the bloody car to the bloody garage? And Max got up and sat with his back to us and went on reading his Beano even though I knew he’d finished it.

And beneath it all thrummed Greg’s disappointment with his son, for we were both aware that there was something not quite right with Max, but when I’d tried to bring this up Greg had got angry and said he didn’t know what I was talking about, the boy was just a bit eccentric.

And beneath this thrummed one of our sexual stand-offs. This one had lasted nearly three weeks, something of a record for us. It stemmed from Greg’s birthday. I’d taken him out to dinner. Underneath my dress I’d worn some new underwear—matching lacy bra, knickers and suspender belt. When we came home, however, Greg had stayed downstairs watching Newsnight. Upstairs I’d peeled off my black stockings, removed my underwear and gone to bed in a state of seething resentment. Since then, I’d rebuffed his few attempts at sexual congress and now he was hurt and he didn’t know why because I hadn’t told him, it sounded too peevish. It was peevish. And because I despised myself I was even rattier with him. You get the picture.

I remember that day so well, but I can’t recall what finally unblocked this marital impasse. Maybe it just dissolved away. And much of our marriage was perfectly contented. Never thrilling, never that.

Prisha, however, confided to her many Facebook followers that, ‘We’re still crazy about each other, after all these years. My heart does a little somersault when Andy comes into the room.’ Maybe her photographs actually told the truth.