That night, galvanised by fear, I resurrected the battle, which he must have thought long won. The word in the snow had rattled me enough to do what I’d always sworn I wouldn’t. This wasn’t just a mix-up with the home-control console, or my imagination – someone was doing this. Whoever it was had found me, all the way out here in my isolated cottage, and wanted to hurt me. I had to tell someone what was going on.

‘I want to go to London tomorrow,’ I announced, when I’d placed his dinner – pheasant breasts with celeriac mash – in front of him. I stayed standing, without serving any for myself.

‘What?’ He reached for the salt without even tasting the food. ‘Why?’

‘I’m just so stuck here, Nick.’ It was five miles to the nearest station, too far to walk. I fantasised about the station a lot. Only a tiny branch line with a freezing waiting room, not even a coffee stall, it represented escape. My lifeline to London, and my old self. Except I couldn’t get there.

He turned that same face to me, the baffled one, that said – I give you all this and still you’re not happy. ‘Stuck in your lovely house, with all the time you wanted to paint?’

‘No, I know, it’s just – I miss my friends. I want to see Claudia.’

‘I got you the dog for company.’ The unspoken accusation. And you lost him. You didn’t care. Scrape scrape scrape went his fork against the plate. Forming the food into neat piles, squares of meat and vegetable. ‘Honestly, I think you’re better off without those people. You know how bitchy Claudia is. And she hates kids, she’s not supportive of our choices. She’s only visited once in all this time.’

I stared down at the table, the grain of the reclaimed wood. Was he right? Was Claudia, who I thought of as my best friend, not even that bothered about me?

‘I just – she invited me for lunch.’ Not true, as it happened; I would have to invite myself.

‘A boozy lunch?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Is that really appropriate?’

‘I never mentioned booze. Anyway, I need to do some shopping for the baby.’

‘I’ll get you anything you need.’ He picked up the salt again. I watched the flakes fall on to the food like the snow outside, holding fast still. A flare of panic – would the trains be running? Would a cab come out here?

‘I need maternity clothes. You can hardly try them on for me, can you?’ I put in a little laugh to soften it. ‘Anyway, I’m going.’

What could he say to that? He couldn’t actually stop me. That would be a new line to cross. He said, ‘It’ll be expensive, with the train and taxi. Aren’t you going to sit down?’