The Weasel has come to see me. The Weasel is my husband, my ex-husband. His given name is Karl. This is his second visit and, so far, it has been just like his first. He has been standing very still by the window, silently weeping. He’s always been a cry-baby so it’s not as bad as it sounds. Today he looks old and sad. He smells nice though. He’s always smelt nice. He lets me hold him and smell him for a bit, although I know that he is uncomfortable and is exchanging looks with the Squeak behind my back. The Squeak is such a phoney. She behaves very differently in front of civvies. She’s all shark teeth and consideration. She brings him a cup of tea and his reaction is so over-the-top grateful you’d have thought she’d wrapped those gnashers around his overused member.

‘Tell Mental Sita I’ll see her at six!’ I say, dismissing her like a waitress. I can be a knob but she deserves it.

‘Don’t call her that, Connie,’ she says. It’s for the Weasel’s benefit. She doesn’t give a toss about Mental Sita.

She gives me a look and leaves the room and I turn my chair to face the Weasel. He says nothing, takes a sip of the tea. He’s looking out at the tree, but not at my leaf, even though it’s having an epileptic fit to get his attention.

‘How’s my mum?’ I ask. His lips are at the edge of his cup; I notice a tiny pause before he takes another sip.

He ignores me. He barely said a single word last visit. I observe him. He is incredibly tall and has a fine lean body like a long-distance runner. He is fit, black-haired and easy on the eyes. But his skin is deathly pale and mottled, like some oddity a trawler might drag up from the deep.

‘What about Josh?’ I ask. ‘Is he going to come and see me? I miss the kids.’

He holds the cup in its saucer and squares up to the window like he’s going to have a fight with it and tea it to death or something. Then he turns around and looks at me. It’s me he wants to kill.

‘Josh doesn’t want to see you.’

I am taken aback every time I hear this. But I try not to let it show. ‘And Annie?’ I ask, a little desperation in my voice.

The Weasel is staring at me. His eyes are very blue and winter cold. ‘Annie?’ he says. He is about to say something else but stops himself. He is looking at my neck, at my throat. He shakes his head at me, or at himself, I can’t tell.