Bizarrely, my previously disinterested husband has become terribly attentive. I suppose I’d almost become accustomed to the way we were, with each of us doing our own thing, inhabiting the same house but not interacting very much at all. It’s just the way things were. Now he follows me around the house like a needy dog, trying to nuzzle me and sitting jammed up next to me whenever I dare to sit on the sofa for five minutes. I almost feel as if I should let him out to the garden to do his business.

I know why he’s doing it, of course. He’s hoping it’ll make the terrible Estelle stuff go away. Before all of this, he hadn’t touched me for weeks – apart from to pick a crisp off my jumper – so it’s unsettling to say the least. Often, I flinch at Andy’s touch, and on occasion I’ve swung around, primed for combat – or to at least pull the emergency cord – as if I’ve been groped on a train. I’ve had to explain, very firmly, that I have no wish to have my neck kissed when I’m battering away at the ice that’s stopping our freezer door from shutting properly.

As well as being Strokey McStrokerson, Andy has acquired another startling new role: the DIY Enthusiast. The coat hooks I’ve been asking him to put up for several decades are finally up; yes, I know I should have acquainted myself with the cordless drill and done it myself, as any self-respecting modern woman would have. But I didn’t, and – hurrah! – I no longer need to trouble myself, as they now adorn our hall wall (exactly where I’d asked him to put them). He has also put up shelves in the bathroom, yet more in our bedroom and hung a large mirror in the hallway; in fact, he has been erecting things all over the house. But not near me, thankfully. Another unexpected development is that he’s come over all canoodly in bed. But naturally, my libido was killed stone dead when the Estelle stuff broke, so there’s nothing happening on that score. Not that he’s being grumpy about his loving attentions being thwarted. On the contrary, he has been extremely pleasant to me, and appreciative to the point of ridiculousness:

Thanks for doing those shirts for me, darling!

Oh, you’ve washed up? I would’ve done those …

Wow, this so delicious …

‘It’s just an omelette,’ I snap. No need to over-egg it, is what I want to say – but I don’t want him to think we’re allowed to be jokey again. I’m still angry, yes – but I also hate the way this whole mess is making me so snarky and bitter, and I wonder if this is me now, for the rest of my life.