‘More than one moment,’ she corrected him.

He looked pained. ‘Yes, you’re right. You mean the world to me, I never imagined in a million years that I would ever do anything like this. I still can’t believe it myself.’

‘Do you fancy her? Have you been lusting after her the whole time?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you thinking like that.’

‘What do you expect me to think? You cheated on me, and if that wasn’t enough, you cheated on me with my friend, with our neighbour.’

He lowered his head. ‘I know.’

‘There must be a reason. You don’t just sleep with someone else for no reason.’

He rubbed his hand along the top of his head. ‘We’ve been married a long time, Soph. I guess the spark had gone a bit, especially after all the baby-making business. And this thing, it felt exciting. And I just got carried away and let it get the better of me. I’ll never forgive myself.’

‘That’s your excuse? You got carried away? What are you, a teenage boy?’

‘I know it sounds pathetic. I just feel that perhaps we were stuck in a bit of a rut. What with constantly talking about having children and not actually enjoying ourselves anymore. And then you got your new job and you’ve been so busy, so distracted.’

‘So it’s my fault?’

‘No!’ he protested. ‘No, it’s not your fault. It’s all my fault – but you’re asking for a reason and that’s the only one I can give you. It doesn’t justify what I did, but there it is. I’m so sorry.’

‘So you keep saying.’

They sat in silence. Sophie took a sip of the whisky, winced and then forced herself to take a larger gulp. It wasn’t going to save her marriage but it might numb the pain.

‘I may have been a bit preoccupied with making babies, and the kids, and becoming a swimming instructor but this is hardly a fair punishment. I mean, yes we should have made more of an effort to spend time alone, the two of us, but it’s hard with young children.’

‘I know.’

‘And you didn’t even talk to me about it. You didn’t even give me a chance to understand how you were feeling and try to make it better. I thought we could always talk to each other.’

‘We can, Sophie.’

‘I think what actually happened is that Angie is an incredibly attractive, sexy woman that pretty much all men drool over and when the opportunity presented itself, you thought with your dick rather than your head. It’s really that simple.’

‘Possibly, yes.’

‘And I thought you were better than that.’

‘Me too.’

He didn’t even try to defend himself. Alan had never been any good at arguments. He always did whatever he could to avoid confrontation. She couldn’t remember a single time in their entire relationship that they’d ever had a proper barney, where he’d raised his voice in any way.