‘It’s not superpowers at all, is it? I mean, to manage two kids and a career, a husband, a house being built in the middle of nowhere. You must work crazy hard on so many levels, inside and out. And I bet nobody really sees what it takes out of you. How you suffer as a result.’

She stares at him. His voice has grown so low it’s as though it’s inside her own head. He looks at her as though he can see everything about her – every thought, every wish, every desire. He clears his throat, looks away, suddenly embarrassed.

‘Anyway …’ She’s not sure whether she says it or he does. How many glasses has she had? It’s after four. They must have been talking for quite a while, and oh Lord, she has one bare leg bent on the seat beside her, revealing a long white thigh to Clive and probably an eyeful of her crotch. Not that the view is particularly sexy – she’s wearing cotton granny pants that sag down around her hips like boxer shorts. She lowers her leg and blinks hard, hoping he hadn’t noticed.

‘Congratulations,’ she says again. ‘That’s amazing, Clive. Amazing … I should …’

She presses both hands firmly on the table to raise herself to a standing position, but somewhere in between coordinating her legs and hands she knocks the glass to the floor with a loud clang. Clive moves to grab it, and suddenly she finds herself standing above him and staring in his eyes. His eyes are not smiling. But his hand … his hand is on her bare thigh, much too close to her crotch. It takes a long moment for her brain to connect with her mouth.

‘What … are you doing?’

His fingers creep higher, slipping under the side of her knickers at her hip. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ he whispers. Then, strangely, and with a smooth confidence that she’ll recall with a shiver for days afterwards, ‘You want this, Aurelia. You want this.’

In the haze of it all she finds she can’t seem to speak and move at the same time, because for whatever reason Clive has reached up and caught the fabric of her knickers between his fingers, so any movement is likely to end up with them askew, or pulled down, which would be embarrassing.

Without taking his hands from her underwear he rises and steps close to her. ‘Tell me you don’t want this,’ he says. She finds she can’t. It’s not the gin. It’s being wanted, and seen. It’s the offer of respite from the nightmares that besiege her every night. And it’s the message folded in his voice, in his touch, that tells her that he understands something about her. Oh yes, she thinks. I want all of this.