‘Good! I’ve put everything on hold for so long, working part-time jobs and waiting for my life to start because of all we planned, all your promises. You told me not to go full-time in any one job where I might have a chance of working my way up the ladder, you said it was because we’d make plans together, that we might travel, that there might be a place for me at Mortimer’s, that we’d have a baby, build a life, a home! God, I am an idiot!’

She pushed her palms into her face and rubbed away the never-ending stream of tears. ‘I actually feel sorry for you, Digby.’ She stood and wiped the grass from her legs, before slipping the narrow engagement ring from her finger, the ring given to her in lieu of the engagement ring he had promised her: his grandmother’s ring, which had never materialised. ‘Here’s the ring you decided was better because your gran’s ring was “old-fashioned”. Was that the truth or another lie? Did you simply not want me to have it? Maybe your mother decided I wasn’t worthy of it?’

The way he blinked told her this was in fact the case and she wanted to hurl the meaningless band of gold into the ocean. Not that she had cared, not really, but now it was just another clue to the sorry ending to their story. As she gave it back to him, his hand, she noted, was shaking as much as hers.

‘I do,’ she pressed. ‘I feel sorry for you, Digby, because I would have been wonderful to you. I meant every word I said, even if you didn’t, and I would have worked hard to make you happy. But now I can’t even stand to look at you, and that’s a shame for you, I think, to have fallen so far in my view.’

His expression was one of anguish; it seemed that her words had hit home and this brought her an ounce of satisfaction.

‘Merrin, look, we need to talk about what happens now; we could bump into each other when I’m home and—’

‘This is not your home!’ She cut him short. ‘It’s mine! My home! And as to what happens now?’ She balled her shaking fingers into fists as she stared at him. ‘What happens now is that I pick myself up and get on with my life and you jump back into your mother’s apron pocket and catch the crumbs she throws you. And every day you live like that, know that you are not good enough – not for me, anyway.’

‘I thought you loved me!’ he called as his eyes misted.

‘I do.’ She whispered the saddest fact, then whimpered, a wounded sound over which she had little control. ‘And that’s the hardest part. But I will learn not to.’