‘Because, shitty as it is,’ he said, taking a deep breath, ‘she judges people by how much money they earn and the car they drive and the holidays they take.’ He swallowed.

‘Blimey! She can’t rate me very highly – eight pound ninety-one an hour, my old banger and a week in Clacton if I’m lucky!’ She had hoped her breezy tone might cheer him up, but noted he didn’t reply or correct her assumption. ‘So how long are you going to make out that you’re off to work every day?’

‘Until I get another job,’ he said.

‘Can’t you just tell her?’ It made her think how, from the outside looking in, the Maxwells appeared to have a lovely life, a happy and lavish life of wine and trips to Crete. She pictured her own husband and knew that what she and Mario shared might not be dressed in ribbon or doused in expensive plonk but was special in comparison. She felt a swell of affection for her man and an increasing sense of discomfort that she was here at all. It was neither glamorous nor fancy here in this room with a view of the park, actually just rather sordid and cringe-inducing, and she wanted to go home.

‘I might have been able to tell her once, back at the beginning, when she seemed to give me a bit more grace, but failure now is really not an option.’

This seemed to her at once unbearably sad and uncomfortably familiar. She saw the man in a new light with his laughter and bravado . . . ‘It’s funny, isn’t it, the things that change in a marriage?’ she said. ‘They happen so subtly you don’t notice, like a tanker a little bit off course and it only comes to light when it arrives in the wrong port. And there’s a captain scratching his head on deck, trying to figure out how it happened.’

‘Yes, it’s exactly like that,’ he said with a cough.

‘So why did you ask me to come here?’ she asked, looking him right in the eye.

‘Because I wanted the thrill of making the plan. I wanted to see if I had the backbone to act instead of just thinking about it. I wanted to spend time with someone with whom I didn’t have to pretend. I’ve always found you very easy to talk to, Bess, and I wanted to have sex with you. I’ve always wanted to have sex with you.’ His words were forthright and shocking, but the thrill she had felt when he made the pass at her at the Christmas party? The electric current of longing that had shivered along her limbs? Both were absent. There was no thrill and no current, nothing bar an uncomfortable film of awkwardness over her skin that made her itch.

‘But that’s not going to happen, is it?’ he asked quietly.