The kitchen was big, and she quite enjoyed pottering in there but, other than that, she didn’t like any of the other rooms very much. They were beautifully decorated – whoever had lived there before them had wonderful taste – but she felt like an intruder, like she was in someone else’s house.

Daniel, on the other hand, loved it. He walked around admiring things, like the coving and the hardwood doors; the brass door handles were a particular favourite of his. But to Lena, this house was like a hotel, somewhere you visited for a few days and then went back to your own place where you felt safe, secure.

She sighed. She was sighing a lot lately: she had sighed when Ria had picked out the new furniture for her, she had sighed when everyone had squealed with delight over how well it went in the new house. If she lived here for the next twenty years, she had a feeling she would still call it the ‘new house’.

As she walked out to pick up the post she saw herself in the large mirror that Ria said would look perfect. She wasn’t getting any younger, but at least she looked all right for her age.

She picked up the few bills that were lying innocently on the oatmeal-coloured carpet, and walked aimlessly back into the kitchen. She sat at her new glass and chrome table and, picking up her mug of tea, she took a large gulp. Who needed a glass table this size? It was a bastard to keep clean, and she harboured a secret hope that one of the boys would accidentally break it, smash it into smithereens. According to Ria, it wouldn’t break like a wine glass, it would shatter like a windscreen. Shatter or smash, she didn’t really give a fuck – she just wanted it gone.

She heard her husband coming down the stairs and she automatically poured him a mug of tea.

‘The boys already gone?’

‘Not yet, they’ll be down in a minute.’

Daniel put on the TV he had installed on the worktop. Now, she quite liked that, if she was being honest.

‘They are hardly ever here, Dan, I just do their washing and feed them these days.’

Daniel laughed. ‘Well, they are grown up now, girl, thank Christ. All fleeing the nest, it’s only natural. Only our little Tania left now, eh? She is a clever little mare, did you see her school report? She is a budding genius, that one.’

Lena nodded. She was tempted to point out that of course she had read Tania’s school report – she had read it days before he had in point of fact – but she didn’t.