George seemed largely unfazed by the coincidence. “I suppose it’s not that surprising. Most people tend to stick around the areas they grow up in.”

Veronica took a sip of her wine – still three days clear of ovulation. “Yes, but out of all the people I could have seen – her, my absolute best friend.”

They were sitting in the living room, drinking wine while they indulged in a Netflix box set. It was almost midnight and George would be up again in less than six hours, she in seven, but on nights when he came home as late as this, if they didn’t stretch the hours of evening, they would barely see each other. Wine helped to mask the cracks in this joint gesture of sacrifice. There was a time when their legs would have been intertwined on the sofa, a time when their hands and lips would have been light with small caresses, a time when the depth of their conversation had felt endless.

“Your best friend for a year.”

“A year is a long time in the life of an eleven-year-old.”

“When I was eleven, I was best boys with Richard Darfus. Do you know what he does now? He’s a brain surgeon. An actual brain surgeon.”

“Did you just say, ‘best boys’?” Veronica smiled at him teasingly.

“Best boys. Sure.”

Veronica laughed. “Cute.”

“Not cute. Very, very manly.”

George grinned, with an old warmth. The open balcony door adjoining the living room let in a soft summer breeze. Through the speakers, the gentle music accompanying the programme credits sounded softly. The cracks seemed almost invisible. Bolstered by her encounter with Sarah, Veronica felt a rare, whispering hopefulness. Even the noise from next door had subsided. Perhaps the neighbours were not going to be as bad as they’d feared. Not that either she or George had so much as mentioned this fear. George had rushed out of the house that morning without a word, and Veronica had understood from this that the potential disaster of the new home they’d ploughed their savings into was too much for him to acknowledge in the daylight. She wanted to talk about it, about whether they should have called the police, or still should, she wanted to dissect her encounter with Dom, but all evening she had tucked this conversation away. Without consultation, both of them had decided to play at paradise.

“Five episodes down, five to go,” George declared, switching off the TV and draining the last of his wine. “Bed?”

She nodded, carrying their glasses to the sink while he repaired the remote control to its charger and plumped their dented pillows. They still moved in effortless congruence. She had hoped many times over the preceding months, that these ingrained habits would be enough to buoy them, and in a way they were. While their bodies failed them, and words faltered, they clung to the fluency of their routines. In the bathroom, they brushed their teeth in unison and, playfully, George made a face at her in the mirror. She laughed, and aped his expression, hopefulness giving way to exuberance. She barely dared to believe it, but something felt different between them that evening – lighter, easy, like they used to be. Perhaps, now that it was quiet, the house, with its freshness, was working its magic after all. In the flat, by the end, all she had been able to see were proofs of disaster. When she walked into the kitchen – there lay the morning she’d pounced on George at the counter, thrusting the pregnancy test beneath his nose. In the spare room – there lived the Sunday they’d spent plotting out where to put the cot. And their bedroom was never safe, always the site of her collapse. Briefly, Veronica wondered whether the woman next door also cried into her husband’s chest as she had done that night, soaking sodden the cotton of his shirt. Or if instead, she cried away from him, because of him. There was, however, still no noise, and she pushed this thought from her mind.