‘Jack, Ellie and the boys are at football and Indie’s in her room, not to be disturbed.’

‘Right you are, now’s our chance.’

Sophie stood up and marched back through the gate while Angie headed inside, wondering how she had ended up here. She’d been walking home from the tube station on Friday evening and had popped into the newsagents to buy a bottle of red wine when she saw some tampons on the shelf. She stared at them. Hadn’t her period been due on Monday? She quickly grabbed her diary from her bag and opened it up. There it was: a little ‘p’ marked in pencil which denoted the start date of her period each month. Angie didn’t like being unprepared.

How on earth had she missed this? She’d been so busy at work and there had been some trouble at school, with Freddy getting whacked by a ball and having to go to A&E and Indie giving a teacher some lip, and she’d forgotten all about her menstrual cycle. Angie’s periods were like clockwork and she fell pregnant easily, so the odds were not in her favour. She did not want another baby. She was forty-two years old and had her hands plenty full enough with four children and a demanding job. There was no way she wanted to go back to sleepless nights and nappies. These were all very valid reasons, she told herself. But the real issue was that her marriage was still in recovery mode and this would destroy it for good.

Jack’s last episode had come completely out of the blue. She had searched over and over again for a reason, something to explain why he did it, but the only one she came back to each time was that he was bored of playing husband and father and he needed a thrill, a break from the monotony. But this time was different because he went a step further.

They were still living in Greenwich at the time. She had been doing the laundry one Saturday morning, turning his jeans inside out before putting them in the machine, when she saw something pink poking out of one of the pockets. She hooked her finger through it and pulled it out, dropping it in horror when she realised what it was. The offending item, a hot pink thong, fell to the floor. She stared at it in disbelief. What did this mean? Had he been to a strip club? Was he sleeping with someone else? The walls were closing in around her as the realisation sunk in that, regardless of the answer, this was not okay. And then she felt something else – fury. Pushing the thong into her own jeans pocket with disgust, she strode into the living room where Jack was watching TV with the children.

‘Jack, a word,’ she said, beckoning him to follow her upstairs. When they got to their bedroom, she closed the door and turned to face him, pulling the thong from her pocket and waving it at him.