‘I’ll wait. Take as long as you want. I love you, Mitch,’ I cried. He didn’t answer. I waited for the crumbs but they never came. It was the first day of a depression that I feared would never go away. The first cut never really heals.

He took a note from his wallet, got up and went inside to pay for our coffees as I stared out across the lake. Boats bobbed up and down in the distance, tiny figures walked around the lake shore and life carried on regardless. Even in death, I thought, nothing would change.

I leant across the table and picked up his wallet and smelt the rich leather for some hint of his scent. It was a worn black affair with the Étienne Aigner logo embossed in gold. He loved fashionable accessories. I lifted out a small photograph. It was signed and dated on the back. Rebecca 1994. Yours forever xx. Of course I would never forget the face. How could I?

Jealousy had never been a weakness of mine before that night at the cinema. It suddenly reared its head and gripped my life in a stubborn vice. No matter how I tried I couldn’t shake it off. Sickness settled in my stomach, food got tossed in the bins and the criss-cross scars on my forearms got deeper.

I struggled to work and went through the motions of trying to control my class of eight-year-olds. I smothered their ebullience and enthusiasm with bland curt authority. Courtney Bramston, a tiny blonde girl with bobbing ponytails and floaty pink blouse, presented me with a dreamlike image of our first child; a princess who possessed beauty in looks as well as personality.

The genetics would now have to favour Mitch if this aspiration were to come true. My hair had started to fall out and my skin was prone to bouts of eczema. Dry patches of red flaky skin defined my face. One day the headmistress called me into her office.

‘Amber, we need to talk.’ Miss Harbinger was the modern-day equivalent of Miss Jean Brody. She possessed the neat pernickety mannerisms of the spinster schoolmarm. I reckoned Miss Harbinger was in her late fifties. She was unmarried, cold and efficient.

Certificates hung on the white sterile walls of her study. Rows of Dickens and Shakespeare tomes lined the bookshelves and a tea trolley was set out with fine-glazed china cups and saucers.

I would never turn out like my boss, of that I was certain. I had a life. It was a momentary blip but soon my hair would regain its lustre and I’d put on a few pounds. One day soon Mitch would return. There was no way he would forgive Rebecca who had so readily replaced him with his best friend.