‘That’s okay, it’s just an old thing.’

I catch her eye, and she smiles, and I can’t help chuckling. Yet again, she’s briefly stopped me from obsessing over my husband’s new love.

‘You know what I think?’ she asks.

‘What?’ I’m anticipating a nugget of sage advice.

‘I think,’ she announces as we descend into the station, ‘they shouldn’t sell those kinds of cakes if they don’t want customers to eat them.’

Chapter Ten

Wednesday, July 24

Before it happened to me, I’d imagined that being left by one’s husband would be traumatic for those first few weeks – and then there’d be a quiet and gradual recovery. The calm after the storm, I suppose. And for much of the time, it is like this: reasonably civilised and fairly businesslike. I have done my utmost to remain dignified whenever Andy has come over to pick up Izzy or to take away more of his stuff. I’ve even gone so far as making him cups of tea (without spitting in them) and helping him to lug bags of books and medical magazines out to his car.

However, on other days, it can feel as if my heart’s been broken all over again, and I’m simmering with fury and hurt. I have found myself crying inconsolably in the dairy aisle of the supermarket. I’ve had to pull over in my car on my way home from work, and sit there mopping at my face, knowing I’m going to look a state when I pick up Izzy from holiday club or a friend’s place, but unable to pull myself together. I have ploughed up and down the swimming pool, imagining Andy and her together, doing it, my tears mingling with all that chlorinated water. I have called him, intending to shout and rage, but just cried into the phone and then hung up. Such incidents seem to happen in bursts, then a couple of weeks can go by and there’s not a single tear shed.

Sometimes, rather than crying, I want to scream and break things and physically hurt him. As it is, I have merely kicked a hole in a wicker waste paper basket, smashed his favourite mug and stabbed a hole in his ratty old gardening sweater with a biro. Thankfully, Izzy hasn’t witnessed any of this. The fact that she needs me to keep things rattling along has been something of a saviour.

She’s in bed now – it’s just gone 9 p.m. – and Andy is here, taking far too long to remove his boxes of paperwork that have been clogging up the cupboard on the landing.