‘Mine’s strawberry fromage frais. Izzy used to love it and I was always scoffing a pot whenever she had one. But once I’d reached that tipping point, that was that.’

‘You’d over-fromaged yourself?’ she suggests.

‘Yep. I could hardly bear to look at it. So maybe that’s what’s happened, and these days I have a sort of fromage frais effect on Andy.’

‘’Course you don’t,’ she splutters.

‘Or are my sprouting face hairs putting him off?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘But maybe they are,’ I say firmly. ‘There was a new one this morning – a thick, long wire – like you might find if you took a vintage radio to bits …’

‘Before they were wireless?’

I nod. ‘Exactly.’

‘I had one of those too, sticking out of my chin. I couldn’t believe my own body had made it.’

‘And then there are the softer ones,’ I add. ‘The ones that sneak out, barely visible but definitely there, like little bits of fur. No wonder he doesn’t want to have sex when I’m halfway to being a goat.’

‘Some people would pay good money for that,’ she guffaws.

She does cheer me up, because when you talk about how someone won’t do it with you, it seems jokey and ridiculous and easily fixable with ‘a chat’.

‘You are going to talk to him, aren’t you?’ Shelley asks as she leaves. ‘I mean, to find out what’s actually going on?’

And I agree that I am.

We’re in bed now, and he is engrossed in a weighty psychological thriller. I clear my throat. ‘Andy?’

‘Mmm-hmm?’ His eyes remain fixed upon the book.

‘You know all this sweating and stuff I’ve got going on?’ I begin, alluringly.

‘Er, yeah?’

‘Well …’ I pause. ‘Does it kind of … put you off, you know … us doing stuff?’

He turns and blinks at me. ‘Doing stuff? What d’you mean?’

What does he think I mean? Having day trips at the seaside? ‘Doing it,’ I mutter. ‘You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’

Oh God, I am rapidly losing confidence here. This is ridiculous! We’ve been together for twenty-five years. He held back my hair while I threw up from a bad oyster at his youngest brother’s wedding. He has seen me push out two babies. He didn’t seem to enjoy it especially, and with Izzy I caught him poking at his phone – but still, it’s mad that I should feel shy with him.

‘Doing it?’ he says carefully. ‘D’you mean, uh—’

‘Yes,’ I say, my cheeks burning now.

He frowns at me. ‘No, I’m not put off. Why d’you say that?’

Because you’re always in too much pain with your raging sciatica, although not so much that you can’t bound off to the pub …

‘I just wondered,’ I say flatly.