‘Just forget it, OK?’

‘And I’ll do that because Ginger will kill me if I don’t. But can I be straight?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘I think you need to be a bit more honest with your husband.’

Christian and Marlon reached me just as Hank Sinatra came on stage.

‘How did all these people get into my room?’ Hank Sinatra said, a direct quote from the live Sinatra at the Sands album with Count Basie as the band tore into ‘Come Fly with Me’.

My phone began to ring.

‘I’ll be right back,’ I told Christian, touching his arm, ignoring his concerned look. He thought I was working too hard. That’s what he thought was the problem. I could have wept at my husband’s innocence.

There was a staircase leading from the room for private functions down to the pub on the ground floor.

I went halfway down it and pulled out my phone.

Unknown Caller, it said. But I knew who was calling. I felt a surge of rage as I put the phone to my face.

‘Never call me again,’ I said.

His voice was slow and deliberate, the voice of a man adept at speaking to a tough crowd. ‘What’s the problem?’ he said.

‘The problem? Everything’s a lie! I know about your wife. She didn’t die, did she?’

‘Is that why you’re angry? We’re separated but we’ve remained on good terms. I would recommend it to anyone. We stay together for the sake of our child. I was speaking metaphorically. She’s dead to me.’

‘Metaphorically? You told me cancer. You lied to me.’

I remembered how my heart had gone out to him when he told me about his wife dying of breast cancer. But it turned out that the wife was alive and well and living a wonderful life on social media. He was a liar and a phoney. Even his blood-gorged, three-times-a-night, fuck-you-blind passion had come out of a cream and green packet of Cialis prescribed by some Harley Street doctor.

‘You’re a fake,’ I said. ‘Everything’s fake. And I want you to leave me the fuck alone now, OK? Don’t call, don’t text, don’t leave messages on my voicemail with “Smooth Classics” on in the background. I’m warning you – I am telling you to leave me alone.’

His voice was very quiet. ‘I am trying to do you a favour.’

‘How the hell are you doing me a favour?’

‘Because I have been trying to tell you, Tara – the sex we had. It wasn’t safe.’

I took a deep breath, looking up the stairwell towards the party. I could not see Hank Sinatra but I could hear him. Hank Sinatra had finished ‘Come Fly with Me’ and was talking about my dad. He was asking Leo to come up on stage. People were cheering. It was a good night. Tears came to my eyes.

‘Tara? Are you still there?’

I remembered again the three stops for protection. The brief transaction – pressing the pause button on passion to ensure that what happened far from home stayed far from home. I remembered the belief – even when the guilt was growing like a tumour inside me, even when I was crying in the toilet of a business class cabin on my way home – that there was one thing at least I didn’t have worry about.