He should have noticed the signs. There’d been nothing blatant. She hadn’t come home smelling of another man. They hadn’t stopped having sex. The one time they’d been apart, she’d definitely been in Kilmitten. There had, though, been small signals. The way she’d started pushing her food around her plate before announcing that she wasn’t hungry. The way she’d shut down any talk about travelling. How, unusually for her, she’d seemed to relish an argument. How she’d failed to turn up for Val’s brother’s funeral. (‘Terrible period pain,’ she’d said.) Christ, thought Tom, I’m stupid.

By now, he was approaching home. A soft breeze rippled in from the Irish Sea. The sky was tinged with coral. It was a beautiful evening. Back-to-school weather, his father called it. Tom crossed the Dodder, his mind darting every which way. Part of him hoped that Nina wasn’t there. He actually hoped that she was out with this man, whoever he was. A teaching colleague? The brother of a friend? A neighbour? He didn’t know if he had the strength to confront her tonight. Another part of him clung to the possibility, however small, that there’d been a misunderstanding. That his girlfriend had a doppelganger, who spent her afternoons in suburban cinemas with confident-looking men.

She was there.

The smell of frying onions wafted from the kitchen. Her voice followed.

‘With you in a sec,’ she said. ‘I bought wine. Would you like a glass?’

‘Um, yeah,’ he replied, as he lowered himself into an old brocade armchair.

A moment later she was in front of him, a glass of red wine in each hand. She was wearing his favourite top. White with a drawstring neckline – her mother had brought it back from a holiday in Santorini.

‘I’m making dinner,’ she said. ‘It’s nothing special, just bolognese, but I’m glad you’re home in time for us to eat together.’ She handed him a glass.

Although Tom thought he was wearing his deadpan face, Nina must have guessed that something was wrong. When it came to spotting trouble, her senses were more developed than his.

‘Was there a problem at work?’ she asked.

There was, he figured, no right way to go about this. No formula of words that would make it any less awful. He had to jump on in.

‘I met Fergal today. He said he saw you last week.’

‘Why didn’t he say hello?’

‘You weren’t alone.’

‘Oh.’

‘Who is he?’

Blotches of colour rose in her face. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Don’t lie, Nina. Please.’ Tom barely recognised his own voice. He sounded pathetic. He was pathetic.

She sat down. ‘I met … I’ve been seeing someone. It only began recently, I promise.’

‘Am I supposed to take comfort from that?’