Our bodies are wiser than we are. You knew this from your work – the effortless drip of hormones, the calibrated mechanisms in our brains. I think they took over for us. I was sitting alone at the bar, having the one gin and tonic I’d allowed myself. At twelve pounds a go, I knew Nick would query it, and I was still getting used to having no money of my own, a month after we’d moved to the cottage. I was still trying to make sense of what my life had become, a non-working wife in the country. Of the mess I’d left in my wake at my old job. Perhaps that was why I did what I did. You came over; we smiled in the mirror of the bar. I saw you reflected, a man of forty-ish but trim and fit, close-cropped dark hair, black-rimmed glasses, expensive suit. I sipped my drink self-consciously. You asked for a whisky, a fifteen-year-old Ardbeg, glancing at what I had, daring me into it though we hadn’t yet spoken. Who was going to talk? I felt the moment stretch like elastic, and then I suddenly became afraid you wouldn’t, as your chit came to sign – I took note of your room number, 255 – so I said, ‘Good choice.’

You leaped on it. ‘A whisky woman?’

I shrugged. ‘Bourbon, really.’ An exaggeration; at best it was my third-favourite drink.

‘Good choice,’ you echoed, raising your eyebrows. ‘At the conference?’ Looking at my lanyard. Or maybe at my breasts, which were in the same area.

‘One of them. There’s about three on at once.’

‘Which are you?’

I did a little jokey wince. ‘The child within – art therapy for repressed memories.’ Surprising that Nick even let me go. Perhaps he felt he’d won an easy victory, getting me out of London, or maybe he saw it as my commitment to a new life, a new career. Or perhaps he’d just no idea what I was really like, what I could do if given my head. A horrible expression, that – it means letting loose the reins of a horse, knowing you can always pull it back if it goes too far.

You grimaced. ‘Sounds messy.’

‘Yes. You?’

‘The pituitary gland – friend or foe?’

I laughed. You said later it was intoxicating, and all you wanted to do was make me laugh more.

‘Actually, that’s one of the keynotes,’ you said. ‘The event is called Endrocon. I’m a gynaecologist. No jokes, please.’ You showed me your badge, the logo a drip of fluid, and the name Dr Andrew Holt. Of course, that wasn’t your name, but I didn’t find that out till later. Was it a warning sign even then, that you didn’t correct my mistake?

‘Andrew.’

You looked down. ‘Oh! Yes.’