I still had my back to Nick, the tea next to me on the counter untouched. I could tell from his voice, and the scrape of the chair, that he’d sat down at the table. He was here to stay.

I carried on chopping again, but slowly. I’d nearly run out of apple. I tried to think. Finally, I asked: ‘What did he do to Irene?’

‘He bit her.’

‘That’s bad,’ I said, actually shuddering with relief that it wasn’t worse.

‘Lisa, stop chopping that bloody apple into a pulp and turn around.’

The apple was mush now. I put the knife down and pressed my hands flat against the worktop. I couldn’t do this, I wasn’t ready. A bit of me even wanted Jack to come in so that I didn’t have to have this conversation.

There was a gasping sound, and then Nick said something in a voice so unlike his, my bladder twitched. When I turned round, I saw he was crying.

I held on to the countertop, so unsure, so shocked. I wanted to do the right thing and comfort him but it was so strange – so alien – to see this big, strong man cry, that I stood motionless, so unsure. Just how bad was the attack on his mother?

‘She had to go to hospital, Lese. Didn’t you wonder why I was home from work with him?’

In truth, I hadn’t. All I could think about when I came home from work was checking the doormat for the letter, and after I saw it was empty, could only think about checking the space by the toaster where we put the picked-up letters, and when I saw that was also empty, I finally relaxed a fraction, took 2 mg of diazepam, and then said hello to my son and made him a snack. There was no space in my head for anything else other than the letter, Valium and Jack.

‘What did he do?’ Defeated, I sank to the chair opposite him.

‘He bit her on the cheek.’

‘He bit her . . . on the cheek?’