We had one more disastrous attempt, before reaching a silent, mutual decision not to chance it again. From then on, we barely touched each other.

One Sunday night, we were watching a video – I think it was Men in Black – one about the world being about to end unless someone does something heroic very quickly. It was near the end of the film, time was running out, urgent music was playing, it was all very tense… And suddenly Garv says, ‘Who cares?’ ‘Sorry?’

‘Who cares? Let the world end. We’d all be better off.’

It was so unlike him that I took a good look to see if he was joking. But, of course, he wasn’t. I watched this person slumped on the sofa, his hair flopping over his dark, mutinous face and I wondered who he was.

The following morning, I’d got up, had my shower, had my coffee and got dressed, and he was still in bed.

‘Get up, you’ll be late,’ I said.

‘I’m not getting up. I’m staying in bed.’

He’d never done that before.

‘Why?’

He didn’t reply and again I asked, ‘Why?’

‘For tax reasons,’ he mumbled, turning his face to the wall.

For a short time I stood looking at the inert mound of him under the duvet, then I left the room and went to work. He wouldn’t talk to me and I was barely even frustrated. Upsets no longer sent me plummeting with despair, they simply settled calmly on top of the others. Probably because there was no place left for me to plummet to – I was as low as it got.

Apart from the occasional day skipping work – but never together – our routines kept us running like rats in a wheel. We thought we were moving forward, but all that was happening was that we were marking time, getting nowhere. It was around then that I started drinking my contact lenses.

Click, click, click, the days passed. We paid our mortgage, we marvelled at how expensive our phone bill was, we discussed Donna’s love life – all familiar stuff, the lifeblood of normality. We went to work, had the occasional night out with friends where the pretence was maintained, then went to bed without touching, and got a few hours’ sleep before waking at four a.m. to worry. And yes, I did wonder when things were going to get better. I was still convinced that this horrible patch was temporary. Until the night, shortly before it all went pear-shaped, when I was afflicted with sudden x-ray vision. I could see straight through the padding of the daily routine, the private language and the shared past, right into the heart of me and Garv, into all that had happened. Everything was stripped away and I had a horrible, too-clear thought: We’re in big trouble here.

Somehow, three months had passed since the holiday in St Lucia.

The day we were supposed to be going out with Liam and Elaine dawned no differently from any of the others. No one could have predicted that today was the day that the whole rickety structure would come crashing down. Then, inexorably, the series of events kicked off – the flat-screen telly falling on Liam’s toe, the phone call where I said I’d pick up some food, the box of truffles in the chilled compartment – ending with the awful tableau of Garv lifting the chocolates out of the shopping bag and exclaiming, ‘Hey, look! Those sweets again. Are they following us?’

Then I was looking at him, at the box, then back at him. Baffled.

‘You know’ he insisted happily. ‘The same ones we had when –’

And then it all went see-through and I knew. He was talking about someone else, another woman.

I felt that I was falling, that I would go on falling for ever. Abruptly, I made myself stop. The gig was up, the end had come and I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bear to watch the downward spiral of my marriage begin to catch other people and spin them into the vortex too.

41

On Friday, Dad went to the chiropractor and Mum, Helen and Anna went to Rodeo Drive. Mum had insisted on going, even though we’d told her it was very expensive. No doubt she’d enjoy it, or at the very least she’d enjoy tut-tutting about the outrageously high prices when she returned.

I couldn’t go with them because, as Emily put it, I had to help her hammer the final few nails into the coffin of her rewritten script. Larry Savage wanted it by lunch-time and it was all hands on deck. We worked through the morning, reading aloud, looking for inconsistencies and checking for continuity. Then at midday – High Noon, Emily kept calling it – we printed it out, the courier came, and Emily kissed the bundle of pages goodbye, ‘Good luck, you poor bastard.’

Straight away, an exhausted Emily went to bed. With Lou. I found myself at an unexpectedly loose end. It was too hot to sunbathe, there was nothing on telly and I was afraid to go shopping in case I bought stuff.

My thoughts turned to that night’s dinner. I was pretty sure Shay wouldn’t show; you’d want to have seen his face when Dad had strong-armed him with his invitation. Not keen – he’d just said yes so he wouldn’t give offence, and it would come as no surprise to get a message saying he’d been unavoidably detained at a meeting or something.

But what if he did come? Then what?

In no time at all, I’d decided to get my hair blow-dried. My only real option was Reza; she was strange and narky, but she was only two minutes down the road and, apart from the way she’d gammied up my fringe the last time, she’d done a fine job. I’d just wear tights on my head for a couple of hours when I got home and I’d be grand.

I rang for an appointment, and when I showed up at the salon it was no surprise that Reza wasn’t friendly – but she wasn’t as brusque as she’d been the other time, either. In fact, she seemed a little subdued. A few times while she was lathering my hair she exhaled wearily on to my scalp, then as she started tugging the head off me with the blow-drying brush, she gave a big, heavy, despair-sodden sigh.

Seconds later came another huge sigh, gathered up from her toes and released like a hurricane all over me. Then another. Eventually I had to ask, ‘Are you OK?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Er, what’s wrong?’

Another sigh was on the way. I could feel it, being collected, climbing its way through her body, expanding her chest, then being exhaled. It took so long I thought she wasn’t going to answer me. Then she found words. ‘My kusband is cheeedink me.’

God, was I sorry I’d ever risen to the bait. ‘Cheedink you? Out of money?’ I asked hopefully.