‘Oh, Bess, if we could turn back time,’ he said, rising to his feet, ‘if we could turn back time, I’d have had the balls to have this conversation with you years ago when you first started looking inwards instead of out, when you gave up on me, on us, on life! So we might have a chance of salvaging things, of making a good life!’

‘We . . . we do have a good life!’ she stuttered.

‘We had a good life,’ he corrected, ‘but we can’t turn back time. We are where we are: fucking stuck with the fact that I gave you some of the best years of my life and you reward me by meeting that wanker over the road for some sordid shag!’

‘That didn’t happen! Nothing happened!’ she shouted, beating her palms on the table. She thought she might faint and wrestled to stay upright. Chutney barked. There was weight to the air that even Chutney sensed, his head now raised, ears alert, eyes fixed.

‘It’s all right, Chuts,’ she called, to soothe her beloved hound.

‘Except it’s not all right, Bess.’ Mario sounded calmer now. ‘And it hasn’t been all right for a while.’ He drew breath and she knew what he was going to say. Her heart lurched in anticipation and her mouth went dry. ‘I want a divorce.’ The hammer of his words fell hard, leaving her hollowed out, bruised and rejected. ‘I want us to get a divorce.’

Rooted to the spot, she was stunned. ‘No, Mario, please don’t say that! Nothing happened, Mario, nothing,’ she whispered, fear seeping into her blood.

‘Truth is, Bess, it doesn’t really matter if something happened or not, not now. My mind’s made up. I want a divorce.’

This time she crumpled, her head inches from the tabletop as she struggled to take a breath.

He opened her birthday card and stood it on the table. ‘How you’re feeling right now – like someone’s punched you in the throat at the same time as kicking you in the stomach, while panic flashes through you as the world as you know it spins out of control and everything you thought you could rely on drains away . . . ?’ It was scary how accurately he had described her state. ‘Well, that’s how I felt when I saw your car in that car park today.’

‘I’m sorry, I am, Mario. I’m sorry.’

He laughed bitterly and shook his head. ‘Please don’t.’

‘But I am! I am sorry! My head is spinning.’ She briefly buried her face in her hands and felt the rise of something close to hysteria in her chest.

The clock on the wall gave its customary ping at the stroke of midnight.

That was it.

Her birthday was over.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

August 21st 1984