‘Nicholas, I cannot take you to Tarabeg. I’ve already explained a million times – it just wouldn’t be right. We aren’t married. The shock would kill Granny Nola and Granda Seamus, I’ve no doubt about it. I cannot even begin to imagine. They think I work here, that Lavinia and the boys still live here. Even if you were a single man, the fact that you aren’t a Catholic, that would be enough. Father Jerry would be apoplectic with the shock.’

‘That’s the Irish in you,’ said Nicholas with a grin. ‘You’re just exaggerating. None of that matters a jot to anyone. They will be happy for us both, because I love you as much as they do and more still, and isn’t that all that matters to them, that you are happy?’

Mary Kate sighed, exasperated, but then grinned, unable to stop herself. ‘I do not exaggerate, Nicholas.’ She jabbed the hairbrush at him as she spoke. ‘There is no divorce in the Catholic faith, it doesn’t exist in Ireland. I’ve never met a divorced person in my life. Even if Lavinia does one day agree, it would never be accepted back home. Divorce is one unholy scandal, a terrible sin. Do you not understand? They’ve always known I’m strong-willed, but this… Not one of them would ever have imagined this. This me would be a stranger to them.’

She looked down and turned another woman’s hairbrush over and over in her hands, felt the gold band on her wedding hand slide between her forefinger and thumb. They had bought the ring for appearances, for when they were out together. None of the other women who lived on the avenue were fooled, but thank God that Nicholas’s surgery was down by the docks, away from the stuffiness of their Fullmore Park neighbourhood. And down in Surrey, at the Box Hill teashop they went to on the rare weekends they were allowed to visit Nicholas’s boys at their boarding school, she passed as the proud wife of Dr Marcus. On those days, Mary Kate forgot the truth, became the real Mrs Marcus and revelled in the fantasy of being his legitimate wife.

Nicholas lived for those infrequent, intense weekends. There was so much to say to the boys, but when the time came there were often awkward silences and sadness in between the bursts of fun and chatter, especially for little Jack. As they drove the car down the drive of the school to return the boys to the housemaster, Jack always began to cry – ‘Don’t leave me, Daddy. Don’t leave me here’ – and Mary Kate could almost hear Nicholas’s heart breaking beside her. Lavinia was in the driving seat down that long and winding driveway, not Nicholas. She was the boys’ mother. The boarding school was at her insistence. Cold rooms and corridors. Stern hearts, scant love.

As Mary Kate looked up at the man who made her heart lift, the words of Mrs O’Keefe, her friend and neighbour, rang in her ears. ‘If anyone ever reports him to the General Medical Council, he could be struck off for adultery. It’s happened before. Be discreet, my dear. True love knows no bounds, but it can encounter many obstacles along the way.’