‘I was crazy about her.’ That’s what he’d said. However, he hadn’t told me much more. It had only been a few months since her death and no doubt he was still grieving. The odd fact slipped out. When they’d met, she’d been something of a rock chick. She’d always loved animals, particularly horses. They hadn’t had children because there was something wrong with her fallopian tubes. She’d been picky about her food, apparently, but it sounded to me as if she had a serious eating disorder. In fact, she seemed altogether fragile, both mentally and physically. She did Pilates and went to spas; she dabbled in interior design. Rich-wife stuff. Her conversion to the climate movement seemed to have happened overnight, but Calvin didn’t talk about this. I think he found it threatening, in some obscure way. She’d died suddenly, of a suspected aneurism, and he’d been shattered.

Maybe he wasn’t ready for another relationship, not yet. Angie’s ghost still haunted him. Haunted me, too. Her presence was in the house. I sensed her just out of sight, wearing something loose and cottony, her tanned feet bare as she padded like a lioness across her marble floors. His boisterousness didn’t fool me. Even when he was joking I’d catch a glazed look in his eye. Something a little forced, as if his mind were elsewhere. It was only natural; after all, they’d been married for thirty years. Needless to say, things were easier in my own house.

I wished I could confide in Azra. Her salty good sense would put it all into perspective. We’d have a laugh about my unlikely affair, which she would have found as bewildering as I did. He must be dynamite in bed, she’d say.

This wasn’t entirely true. Calvin oxygenated my brain; that was our erogenous zone. Under the duvet we’d chat for hours, and if we had sex it was cosy rather than mind-blowing. Sometimes we started giggling and simply gave up. But I didn’t mind. I’m sure I was no match for Angie, but I could make him laugh. From what I gathered, Angie wasn’t the sharpest knife in the box.

As I said, during those first couple of months we lay low. I didn’t even tell the children. Lucy would be instinctively hostile towards this new man in my life. What do you know about him? Do you trust him? In her gruff way she’d be worried about me. I just don’t want you to get hurt. Max, on the other hand, would be pleased but incurious. I’m just glad for you, Mum. It would be easier to tell him, but if I did, Lucy would bristle at being left out. Despite their age, sibling rivalry lurked like a virus, ready to flare up at the slightest opportunity.