What have I done? thought Emma as she loaded the bag with the shoes into her bicycle’s basket and cycled through the light early evening back to the flat. Spending in just ten minutes as much money on a pair of shoes as it had taken her and Matthew months to save for a fridge. Spending on herself money that could have been spent on both of them and, worse, not even spending it outright and honestly, but committing to spend, on the credit card she had never yet used before, the card that would rack up interest and lead to financial ruin, the card she had so proudly held back for emergencies, only to squander on a pair of shoes.

What have I done? she thought, chaining her battered but serviceable bicycle against the railings outside the flat and taking into the narrow hallway of the converted Victorian laborer’s cottage the package in the stiff white bag that should have been brought home by someone else, someone traveling by taxi to a house with a heavy double door leading to a marble hall and an important staircase, the package that now as she climbed the flimsy stairs to the flat felt barely heavier than the air around it, as what should it have to weight it, its content being nothing but straps and rosettes, straps and rosettes that had cost her as much as a fridge.

What have I done? she thought, unwrapping the shoes in all their gaudy frivolous glory and setting them shamefacedly beside the perfectly pretty, perfectly serviceable, perfectly affordable shoes that she already had, that now seemed to shrink in rejected humiliation beside their wantonly glamorous rivals, her heart suddenly and absurdly breaking with pity for them and remorse for the pain she had caused them. What have I done? what have I done? what have I done?

The telephone rang, startling her disproportionately. It was Matthew.

“I’m still at work,” he said. “Just leaving now.”

“No rush,” she said. Why did she feel suddenly guilty? Then, oh, she thought, that was why. “I’ve only just got in myself.”

“Are you okay?” he said. “You sound sort of out of breath.”

“No, I’m fine,” she said. Although she was far from fine, very far, very far from fine. “Actually, I did have quite a long day.”

“Me, too,” he said. “Let’s go out to dinner tonight.”

Go out, she thought. To a restaurant, with restaurant prices for food she could cook herself, probably with wine, and a tip for the waiter on top. Emma could never go out to a restaurant again.

“I’ll cook,” she said. “We’ve got the chicken, I’ll just throw it into the oven.”

“Let’s go out,” he said. “There’s that Italian place I want to try. We haven’t been out for a while. Let’s celebrate having nearly bought the fridge.”

And because Matthew was not the one who had spent the cost of the fridge on shoes, if Matthew wanted to go out to dinner tonight, then surely he deserved to go.