‘You’ve not been a total fuck-up, anyway, have you? I mean, apart from a recent… glitch – which will pass, by the way – I think most would agree that you have managed a pretty stellar career.’ Esther paused, marvelling at her urge to bolster his spirits, at her capacity to care, how it could not be switched off, wondering if it was a sign of weakness or of strength. ‘And there’s Heidi,’ she pressed on.

‘No, actually. There isn’t. At least, we’re on a break. Called for by her.’ He delivered the news sullenly, keeping his back to her. ‘The trouble that girl’s allegations caused, it managed to come between us…’

‘Lucas, I am so sorry.’

‘And I sort of went off the rails a bit over it… some drowning of the sorrows… which didn’t help matters. Though I’ve stopped that now. For good.’

‘Drinking?’

He nodded.

‘Wow.’ Esther released the word quietly, trying not to sound too astonished, understanding better the refusal of the Christmas champagne, which in the end none of them had had the heart for anyway. ‘I mean, seriously?’ she added, before she could stop herself. This was Lucas, after all, whose passion for wine was his favourite hobby, who could read a book about grapes and vineyards with the absorption most people reserved for a bestseller.

‘Not managing to stay fully in control, I’d be no better than him, would I?’ His voice was so thin and bitter she could hardly hear it. The shoulders shrugged, once, twice, and again, until it dawned on her that he was weeping.

‘Lucas…’

‘I’ll be fine.’ He shook off the tentative hand she had dared to place on his back and wiped savagely at his face with the hem of the jumper. ‘I can’t just forgive and forget,’ he growled, ‘like he wants. Like Dylan and Lily want. When we talked, he broke the big news that Mum was a depressive like that makes everything okay. When it doesn’t. It just meant she needed more care, more love. Instead, he went and…’

Esther waited. Instead, John went and slept with other women. She knew this was what Lucas had intended to say. That the words had not emerged felt somehow significant. ‘I do not think forgiving means forgetting,’ she said carefully. ‘In fact, I don’t think it should. But it takes time, and has to be when you are ready. Though, the thing about not forgiving…’ She hesitated, wary of the tension in him, and thinking suddenly of her own difficulty in processing their failure as a couple, holding onto all the easy blame and resentment instead of trying properly to understand. ‘The thing about not forgiving,’ she repeated, ‘is that it can be terrible for the person doing it. Because it weighs them down, stops them from moving on and enjoying life…’ She let the sentence hang.