‘It didn’t start out like this,’ he says finally. ‘She was only twenty-four when I met her. She told me she was into a bit of S&M, bondage, that sort of thing, but who doesn’t experiment at that age? I found it erotic at first: you know, a little bit of spanking, a pair of fluffy handcuffs. My first wife didn’t like sex at all – at least, not sex with me. Sex with Stacey was exciting.’

I really don’t need to hear this. ‘Look, you don’t have to tell me if you—’

‘God, it’s a relief to talk about it,’ Felix says, his voice raw. ‘I’ve never told anyone before.’

River water laps at the wall below us as a boat goes past, and a pair of seagulls wheel overhead. In the distance, a police siren blares. I’ve got no idea what to say to Felix: I barely know the bloke, but maybe that’s why he feels he can talk to me.

‘Things changed after we got married,’ Felix says. ‘It took more and more to … you know. Satisfy her. In bed. It stopped being erotic or fun for me. I started to say no. We went months where we hardly had sex at all.’

For a long moment, I think he’s done talking. We walk along the pavement in silence for a while, pausing only to allow a group of teenage boys pushing and laughing and shoving at each other to go past.

‘After Archie was born, things started to escalate,’ he says at last. ‘It didn’t happen all at once, Tom. At first she’d just throw plates, or punch the wall. But one day instead of hitting the wall, she hit me instead. She cried afterwards and told me it’d never happen again, but of course it did. Things got worse after Archie went to boarding school. Once she even broke a wine bottle over my head, and I ended up in hospital with concussion.’

‘She hits you?’

‘I don’t expect you to believe me,’ he says again.

The #MeToo movement is all about believing the woman. But surely it should be about believing the victim.

What if Stacey’s the aggressor? What if Felix is the one being abused?

A decade ago, I wouldn’t have considered it even a possibility, but two years ago I worked on cybersecurity for a men’s rights campaign group: it blew my mind when I found out a third of all victims of domestic abuse are male. According to the government’s own statistics, three-quarters of a million men are attacked by their partners every year, and twelve are killed by them. But no man wants to admit he’s been beaten up by a girl.

The scratches on Felix’s forearms: what if they were defensive wounds?