Sitting there, she remembered her mother: arthritic and emphysemic – from all the cigarettes she and her father had consumed their entire life. Peggy had been dealing with recent memories of waking to find her husband dead beside her from a heart attack, struggling breathlessly to maintain her beloved vegetable garden and existing on a scant government pension. Bony, sweaty and blue-tinged, sitting in her chair with the oxygen mask clamped to her face, her mum still managed to smile. ‘I’m a right old wreck,’ she’d say cheerfully, between gasps. ‘Knackered me in the end, all those fags. But I enjoyed every sodding one. I’d light up right now if this perishing oxygen tank wouldn’t blow us both to smithereens.’

Romy compared Peggy’s stalwart, unflinching attitude to Michael’s … to her own. But both of them had been rendered weak and useless by the legacy of her husband’s lies, while her mother was fulfilled, at peace with herself. And though Michael might choose not to be, Romy fully intended to grab her life by its collar and find her own version of fulfilment.

Tonight, she told herself, I will open a bottle of wine and drink to me, Romy Margaret Turnbull. Her maiden name sounded strange on her tongue after so long, but also comforting. It summoned up her parents’ love, their strengths, their passionate commitment to a better planet and the values they’d instilled so solidly in her and Blake – all of which Michael had cruelly disparaged.

‘To Romy Turnbull and a new start,’ she said later, raising her glass of red in the air and smiling to the universe. Michael had bought the wine, but her anger was spent now, and she drew the line at giving away a very good Rioja, double standards or not.

There was so much to enjoy that didn’t have to involve men. Finch had been someone who understood the life she wanted, who might have been a real soul-mate. But she tried not to think of him. She was sure she would find like-minded friends once she opened herself up to the possibility … once she knew more where she was going and who she was.

I’ll continue up at Ebernoe. I’ll chase a conservation job. I’ll make an effort with people in the village. I’ll try yoga. I’ll paint the walls bright colours and make yoghurt like Mum used to in that jug in the airing cupboard. I’ll take a trip somewhere interesting with Bettina. I might even get a cat. This last thought interrupted her manifesto and made her smile. Cats caused Michael’s eyes to itch and swell up.

On Tuesday morning, Romy met up with Maureen at the harbour café. She wanted to pick her brains.