Connie paused as if she were waiting for the time it took her to open the gate, her fingers twitching. ‘I close the gate behind me. From the back of the garden, I can see people downstairs in my kitchen. I know perfectly well that they can never see me. You can go right up to that window and still not be visible because of the lights inside. I hear sporadic muted laughter but I can’t make out the conversation. I walk down the garden path, past a pile of wilting soccer balls. Had Josh’s obsession ceased now that he was having sex? Ah, there’s Karl. He’s entertaining. I haven’t imagined him entertaining without me but there he is at the table, the jovial host, pouring out the wine, cracking the jokes. I stop.

‘Oh.

‘There she is, the jovial hostess, in my place, drinking from my glass, eating from my plate, lapping up my life. I wonder whether I ever existed at all. She is glowing, dressed in a T-shirt, hair tied back, radiant and unscathed as ever. I bend a little to see who the other adults are: the Stevensons and a woman I don’t know. The Stevenson kids must be upstairs hogging the PlayStation. They are the worst guests; it’s always the kids whose parents don’t let them play who make the dullest play-dates, glued to a screen of any sort. They are more Ness’s friends than ours. Karl and I don’t know them well at all, only in a social media sense where they seem rather earnest, saving-the-world type people, posting dull photos of unappetizing health drinks and sugar counts, running moonlit marathons, permanently outraged by the fascist regime yet furious if someone disagrees with them. Karl and I, we used to take the piss. Not any more, obviously. Where had we gone, he and I, the thing that we were?

‘The other woman is a stranger, possibly there as a stooge to distract from Ness and Karl’s adultery, to stop the table feeling too coupley. But there they all are, having a smashing time, getting on famously, forging new friendships now that the old regime had been ousted, drinking organic wine and munching on their thrice-baked arse-beans or whatever they’re eating, the remnants of which litter the table . . . this isn’t right . . . this isn’t right . . .’

Connie began to drum her fist into her palm and started mumbling something incoherently and Emma leant towards her. ‘Just say what you see, Connie . . .’

Connie nodded and angled her head upwards as if she were looking up to the window above the kitchen.