Jake is standing too. He looks smaller than I remember. He seems to have shrunk over the last few days. And I feel like I’m shrivelling inside where no one can see it.

‘You haven’t exactly been straight with me, either,’ Jake says.

I blink back my tears.

‘You can’t lay all this at my feet, Lyssa,’ he says and there’s a catch in his voice. ‘This inability to have children has all been blamed on me and my sluggish sperm, but that’s not the whole story, is it?’

I feel as if the breath has been knocked out of me.

‘All the time you’ve been telling me that there’s nothing wrong with you, that everything’s fine and in working order. But that’s not quite true, is it?’

I am speechless with shock.

‘I read the consultant’s report, Lyssa. The one you hid from me. Everything’s not fine at all. I’ve always felt that you blamed me, but you’ve not been straight. I think you owe me an explanation.’

‘I don’t think I owe you anything,’ I say quietly and walk out of the door.

Chapter eighteen

Chapter eighteen

Edie sent Lee to the off-licence for some wine the minute I arrived at their house, shaken and sobbing. We are showing our appreciation by drinking it very enthusiastically. Rather sensibly, Lee has now disappeared somewhere to do something with wallpaper. Two more glasses and we’ll be shredding the entire male species. He has also been put in charge of the children so that we can commence the dissemination of my relationship in relative peace.

‘Jake says I’ve lost my verve for life,’ I tell my sister, sounding very much like someone who has indeed lost their verve for life.

‘What does Jake know,’ she says.

‘Jake says she’s a very ballsy woman.’

‘You have had your own testicular moments.’

I curl further into myself on the sofa. ‘She’s going to climb Everest.’

‘Well, I hope she gets eaten by a big, hairy-arsed bloody buggery Yeti.’

I wouldn’t admit this out loud at a cocktail party—or to my sister—but I’m not entirely sure where Everest is. I know it’s the biggest mountain in the world—I’m not that stupid. It is, isn’t it? I’m sure it is. But I’d be hard pressed to put a pin in it on the map. I do know that they have Yetis there though. I hope she gets eaten by one too. Slowly. A bit at a time. With her nice hairdo last.

‘She’s like Action Woman,’ I moan. ‘I bet she does bare-knuckle fighting and arm-wrestling in her spare time. She’s got a much bigger bum than I have.’

‘Well,’ Edie says. ‘Bottoms are the new boobs.’

‘Oh really? And you know about these things?’