‘Then why did you sleep with someone else?’

‘I was stupid. I was scared. I was drunk.’ A beat. ‘I was flattered.’

‘Flattered? Fucking flattered?’

I pulled away from his grip. ‘I’m only telling you the truth.’

‘First time for everything.’

‘And I wanted …’

‘Go on!’

‘All I wanted was to be wanted.’

He went into the living room, Buddy padding happily behind him, and began furiously looking through his collection of vinyl, pulling out old favourites and looking at the cover, all those twelve-by-twelve-inch comfort blankets, then skimming them across the floor.

‘I want to be wanted, too,’ he said, looking at the records and not at me. ‘You know what stopped me ever acting on it? The thought of losing you and Marlon. Only that. The opportunity was there, Tara. The women were there – fabulous women. At the gym. At the school gates. And online.’

‘Christian,’ I said, trying to calm him down. ‘Look, just because someone “likes” your photograph of a sunset on Instagram, it doesn’t necessarily mean they want to have sex with you.’

‘Maybe it does! But I couldn’t risk losing you and so I did nothing. And then I lost you anyway. So what was the point?’

‘I’m sorry. I really am.’

He wasn’t listening. You get to apology overload, I suspect. He put on some music. Some Girls by the Rolling Stones, turned up to ten. The Stones’ late-Seventies response to punk and New Wave, I thought, the music journalist in me kicking in. Their last great album, quite rough on women as I recalled. Very loud. Loud enough to bother the neighbours, loud enough to make them want to move to the country. I felt a sudden burst of anger with him. Sometimes Christian seemed stuck in late adolescence, lost in music and never really having to worry about tax, bills, life, the money running out – and then what? How do we live? The thought that hits you at 4 a.m. in the middle of your dreams, the thought that you are living a way of life that very soon you will not be able to afford. He was happy to leave all of that to me.

He turned to look at me.

‘You’re so spoilt, Tara,’ he said. ‘Always so spoilt. What child grows up with a horse in their back garden?’

‘Leave Maple out of it, will you?’

He shook his head and adjusted his spectacles.

‘I don’t know you,’ he said.

‘Oh, you know me. You’ve always known me, Christian. Remember? You didn’t want the girl next door, you wanted the wild one – and you got her. Well – this is what she looks like and now you’re stuck with her.’

‘And now you’ve ruined everything.’

I couldn’t argue with that.

‘What were you doing out there anyway?’ he said, as if it could all be undone if we both saw how senseless it was. ‘What were you doing all those thousands of miles away?’