I was a bit troubled by the thing with my name, but it was easy to explain to myself. Gavin the estate agent might have mentioned it to her, for example. I had to stop dwelling on things. Rumination, they call it in psychology. When your brain worries away at a minor thing until you wear a hole in yourself, like an unravelling jumper. The way I think about the last time I saw you, taking the memory out and rubbing it smooth as a stone. We’ll figure this out. But for now, don’t make any waves. Go home.

It isn’t home, I’d said, made bold with fear. Not with him.

Soon. And you drove off in your Jaguar, leaving me by the side of the road in the September sunshine, the waving grass brushing my bare legs, my city sandals far too clean to have been for a proper country walk, so that I had to muddy them on my way home in case Nick suspected. I’d been so happy just then, despite the fear and the sick feeling of having to tell him. I didn’t doubt you would come for me. But since then – almost two months now! – I hadn’t heard a word. I’d replayed it a thousand times. Had I done something – said something – that changed everything so utterly? What was it? Meanwhile, my stomach was swelling like an opening flower in water. Something had to be done. But what?

Nick was late that night, after I went to Nora’s. I’d taken to hovering by the front window when he was due, like a woebegone dog, hands on my belly. Not because I missed him. More because the clock had hit six, the hands balanced straight as a knife, and I knew if it tipped any further I’d tip with it. That night, he idled outside, locking the car. He must have been on the phone; I could hear his voice but not what he was saying. The low roll of his laugh, unfamiliar as thunder in a long summer. He was talking to a woman, I could tell. Someone in the office, probably, some bright young graduate. Loyal. Liked dogs and wellies and didn’t crave the pound of tarmac under her heels. He was silent now. Off the phone. He still didn’t come in. I went into the hallway and up to the door, right up close to the Farrow & Ball paint, pressing my bump into it along with my ear, and I imagined I could almost hear him breathe on the other side. What was he waiting for? Then suddenly he wrenched it open. I saw him like a stranger might, a middling-height man in a Superdry jacket, a shirt and tie, glasses steaming up in the cold. Brown hair, a nice rather than a striking face, or so I had once thought. ‘What are you doing?’