‘I wanted a shoulder to cry on. I wanted to know what it was like to be you, to have something separate going on in my head all the time.’ She looks at him, pleading with her eyes for him to guess, to spare her from having to say his name.

‘Who was it? I’ll bloody kill him!’ Nicolas says feebly, feeling he should say it, but knowing he never would.

She replies with a tearful look. And he understands. His anger drains away. A terrible sickliness comes over him, as though he’s ingested some fast-acting poison. He stumbles, and steadies himself with a ladder-back chair.

Dear boy, of course. The best man. Who else? ‘You mustn’t worry about him, my child. From time to time, work gets on top of all of us.’ The pale hands clasp hers in consolation. That signet ring glints in the candlelight. Is the idea of getting on top of her already present in the words’ ghostly emphasis? How cunning is he? Can he persuade anyone of anything? ‘Let me pour you some of this.’ A little wine splashes over her fingers as she gestures that it’s enough. He dabs the spillage off, and weighs her hand lightly in his palm. ‘Motherhood positively suits you, Anyushka. You’ve blossomed. Let me look at you! My goodness, where has all the weight gone?’

Nicolas sees that big linen-covered rear getting into the carriage at the cemetery, and then getting into his wife. In a hotel room? In the office? In his own bed? He covers his eyes with an involuntary movement of his hand. He thinks he might throw up.

Anya rushes to embrace him. His arms hang loosely down. Her wet face makes a damp patch on his shirt. Her head feels like the hilt of a knife that’s stabbed him.

The world is what it is. God is dead, man is alone, everything is possible. I stuffed your wife with my strong meat, Nicolas. And to think that you imagined I was a big neutered tomcat! The sound that his belt buckle makes as he undoes it also says: Rachkovsky.

‘There are worse things than a new life,’ Nicolas says quietly. ‘I forgive you. If it’s a boy, we’ll give him my name. This will be a secret between us.’

Anya looks at him in astonishment. She was expecting wrath, tears, even blows, not this stoic acceptance. She wonders if he even feels it.