Before long, she was back at the Ruby Spirit. She hung around as the other passengers drifted back onto the boat. Nobody was checking who was boarding, and now she saw a sign that had been erected by the entrance: This boat will not wait if you are late.

She nodded to herself. No head count then. She stored away the knowledge to be used in a few days’ time, at their next stop in Iceland.

Paula stared at the cobbled main street, disappointment evident on her face. The few shops that lined the road were of no interest to her.

Behind her, Tommy tapped her shoulder and nodded across the road. Paula’s heart sank even further as she spotted the sports bar he was gesturing at.

‘Pint?’ he asked, hopefully.

She sighed and looked back the way they had come. Behind her, the street opened up to a large expanse of green water, a slow-moving river that twinkled as it caught the light of the glaring sunshine.

‘Maybe we could take a walk,’ she said. ‘Down the river, maybe find somewhere to have lunch.’

Tommy nodded and checked his watch. ‘Tell you what, you have a look around, I’ll catch the first half of the rugby, then we’ll go and have some lunch.’

Paula lifted a hand, a half-hearted gesture that he took as permission. He swooped in to land a kiss on her cheek and darted across the cobbles, vanishing into the gloom of the bar.

Paula turned around and walked back down towards the river. Across the water, the Ruby Spirit loomed large, and she sat down on a bench to admire it. She still couldn’t get over the size of it, and she wished very much that Tommy was there with her.

But he wasn’t.

He never was.

Suddenly Paula felt very lonely, hit by the realisation that she was in a perpetual state of solitude. This wasn’t a new thing; the feeling was constant, always there, even when Tommy was beside her. To make up for it, she bought stuff, things that were pretty and expensive, but items that she would give up in a heartbeat for a man who wanted to be with her more than he wanted to hang out with the lads or watch the rugby.

‘I’m lonely.’

She said the words out loud, her voice breaking as she admitted to herself for the first time that something wasn’t working the way it should. She bit her lip and wondered how she could make it right. The image of a baby – that phantom miracle-working child she’d thought about so often over the years – popped into her mind. It was a cliché, she knew. It would be a Band-Aid baby, a patch to cover the open wound of boredom. But underneath, the scars would remain.

‘Shit,’ she whispered as tears stung at her eyes.