Terry had told her that to be honest, he couldn’t really remember it, the life his brothers described, but it was true – he’d been middle class once, upper-middle class even, way richer than her, with a father who liked and bought the best of everything. Terry’s mum had even held on to one sparkling ring as proof, proof of what she’d been tricked by. But Terry didn’t feel tricked. As a teen, he’d wished only that she’d stop talking about it, stop trying to make out that they were different from everyone else around them. He felt embarrassed by the way she tried to be ‘better’. Was ‘better’ a father who abused and left them? He didn’t want to be like that. He didn’t want to be rich. He didn’t want a job. A job to join the great turning wheel, the foolish race, the structure that feeds the fat cats, like his father? The disgusting symbol against which he measured everything? She could understand that.

It’s why he lost it with her. She can understand that too.

What Simone cannot understand, is exactly what she did to make things go so spectacularly wrong. It’s the worst fight they’ve had in months and for the past three days she has been thinking about it. Clearly, she hit a nerve when she told him about the job, and she feels so stupid because she’d been aware of that probability. Yet for all her preparations she’d still chosen the wrong words, or the wrong tone, or maybe it was the timing. You’d think that by now she’d be better attuned to his sensitivities, but she always seems to make him flip eventually, she always does something.

The problem is, she wants the job. She does. Even though it’s small. Even though it’s barely anything. And no matter how sympathetic she tries to be to Terry, she can’t see anything so terrible about it. So she had to tell him. Plus, there is an unfamiliar new emotion brewing in the bruised aftermath of this time. There is still remorse, guilt, and a knowledge of her own idiocy. There is still fear of further reprisal. But there is also, this time, a rage of her own. Not large enough to match Terry’s, but there nonetheless. A slow, festering rage carved from that deep, disturbing shame.

Because all she could think about, this time, was that Veronica was hearing it. Prim, perfect Veronica, and the rugby husband she hasn’t yet met. They were hearing her head thudding against the wall. They were hearing the blow of her shoulder against brick as Terry flipped her around and pressed her forward. They were hearing her inexorable wail as he ploughed into her. Beneath their clean, new sheets they were hearing everything. And most likely clasping to each other in grateful response, caressing one another tenderly, whispering congratulations that they themselves were not as animalistic as him or as stupid and slutty as her, and consoling each other on the pity of having such neighbours.