Half an hour later, Chloe hears Patrick’s footsteps on the stairs. A dull thud that comes closer. He stops at the top of the landing. Chloe grips the duvet underneath her chin as a pair of feet come to a standstill outside her door. The light dims. She hears his breath on the other side of the door frame. She stares at the door handle, praying not to see it turn but she’s sure it moves momentarily. Someone’s grip on the handle the other side. She freezes in bed. But a second later the footsteps move away, towards the bathroom. She listens to the sound of the toilet flushing, to the taps in the sink, the water whooshing past her down the creaking drainpipes. Every sense is alert in the darkness. And long after he closes their bedroom door, Chloe lies awake staring at her black ceiling.

They say that at night, when the frontal lobes are least active, we are left with the more primeval parts of our personality. Intuition takes over from logic. So it makes sense that it is in the middle of the night, the early hours, when Chloe’s suspicions are strongest, when she rehearses in her head what she will say to Maureen come the morning, what she will reveal about the husband she adores. She practises over and over so she will get it right as the sun bleaches the black night blue behind her curtains. But by the morning, when she goes downstairs for breakfast, when the kitchen table is filled with bright packets of kids’ cereals, a plastic bowl and spoon for her, the world somehow looks more normal again. Normal, and at once strange.

Chloe rubs her eyes. She has hardly slept.

‘Let me get the milk for you, Chloe, love,’ Maureen says, as she tucks her chair under the table.

Patrick sits across from her. She doesn’t look up. Instead she feels his eyes on her. She thinks of her archive. She has no appetite.

Maureen fusses around her as usual, trailing a hand down the back of her hair as she moves between the table and the sink. Chloe shivers a little.

‘Any more dreams?’ Maureen says.

She has asked her this the last three mornings.

Chloe shakes her head. Maureen looks disappointed, as she has every other day.

‘We’ll have to be feeding you cheese before bed,’ she laughs.

Patrick laughs too.

‘Pat’s got some business in town later, so he’s offered to pick you up from work.’

Chloe looks up quickly.

‘Oh, I—’

‘It’s no bother, Chloe, love. Is it, Pat?’ Maureen says.

‘No, no bother at all,’ he smiles at her, and underneath the table, Chloe presses crescent shapes into her palm with her nails.

‘It’ll save you getting the bus, and they say there might be rain later,’ Maureen says.