Rohan raised an eyebrow then turned to fetch himself a glass of water. ‘Still doing your checks?’ I nodded. ‘I might not be awake by the time you come up, so good night,’ he said and went on up the stairs while I pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and let my head fall into my hands. How had the date gone so wrong? I felt as if Rohan and I had been struggling all day for a way to reconnect; each of us scrabbling to strengthen the bonds that held us together; scrabbling but failing. I had the sense that the ties of our marriage were loosening; that they’d stretched until I was floating, barely tethered, in orbit around Rohan, lost, and failing to make contact.

It was easy to blame him for taking the job in New York, but was this actually my fault? He’d said how much he’d been looking forward to coming back and I could even picture him on the plane as it hurtled towards London, whisky in hand, knee jiggling with excitement. I could see him telling the check-in staff that he was flying back to see his wife whom he hadn’t seen for way too long; I could see their indulgent smiles. Rohan wore his emotions like a dog: if he was happy, if he was excited, everyone knew it.

And, in contrast, I hadn’t even realized what time he was due back, let alone heard him arrive. Any decent wife would have been waiting – my insides shrivelled with shame when I remembered how I’d waited on the stairs for Grace’s arrival – or even gone to the airport to meet their husband. A part of me that I didn’t want to acknowledge could picture Rohan scanning the Arrivals hall for the sight of me there to greet him; of my face lighting up when I saw him, tired and crumpled, for the first time in weeks.

But I was painting, I told myself. I mustn’t forget that. I was deep inside my head, lost in the inner world in which I saw things on the canvas of my soul. Day-to-day things suffered. It was just how it was. I had to tell myself that because to consider the alternative – that Rohan and I had little to say to each other after just four weeks apart – was too awful to bear.

I looked despondently around my fabulous new ‘show’ kitchen – the kitchen that stuck out from the house like a sore thumb for its modernity and that looked – at the moment – in a worse state than any student kitchen. As I stared at the grease marks and splotches on the pristine counters, I knew exactly what I could do to make amends – at least, to show willing. I would clean, not just the kitchen but the whole house.