I understood what he was telling me, even if my brain pushed it away. I understood it all the way up from my feet. ‘You had sex? When?’

A long silence. I already knew.

‘Yesterday? While I was out?’

‘We hadn’t seen each other for such a long time. I don’t know why it happened. She just – came on to me, and it happened. I’m so sorry, Ali.’

‘In our house? In our bed?’

‘In the – in my office.’

Karen’s hesitation when I’d suggested Jake go up there. Mike, wanting to shower before dinner, even though there wasn’t time.

‘With our children there? And Jake too?’

Nod. ‘They were – they didn’t know. I swear.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘I know. I know, Ali! I just . . . I couldn’t help it. I swear, it was all her, she threw herself at me. I told her it could never happen again.’ So that was why she arrived so early, why they were both so happy to see me off to my meeting. Everything fell into place so neatly. I reached out and clutched the cheap table, the plastic picked away to show the fake wood beneath.

‘Why now? When you’ve been friends for, bloody hell, twenty-five years?’

He said nothing.

‘Tell me, Mike. Why would you sleep with her now?’

His voice was low. ‘You’ve changed.’

‘Changed?’

‘For years you were so . . . content. The kids, the house. You didn’t need anything else. But lately it’s like you’re just so angry all the time. This feminism stuff. I guess I’ve felt like . . . you were angry at me.’

I gaped at him. The words coming out of his mouth made no sense to me.

‘I know this is shit,’ he said. ‘I know it. But what she’s saying, I could go to jail. We’d lose the house. I could be in there years – rape? That’s a life sentence . . . But I didn’t do it, Al. I don’t know, she could have made those marks herself, to get back at me. Or maybe she made a mistake, maybe she’s not well or, Christ, I don’t know. Please, help me. I’ve fucked up but I’m not a criminal. Tell them I’d never do something like this. Please! Tell them – I don’t know, tell them you saw me go to sleep or something, you looked out the window . . .’

I was trembling. The words were in my mouth before I knew it. ‘This is just like Martha, isn’t it.’

He recoiled. ‘It’s nothing like that. That was just – Christ, Ali!’

‘You asked me to lie then, too.’

‘It wasn’t a lie!’