‘And it’s celebrity night,’ he complained bitterly.

To pass the time Ted went through Dylan’s enormous record and CD collection with jealous admiration, exclaiming when he found an impressively rare one. ‘Look at that. Bob Marley’s Catch a Fire – in its original sleeve. How’d he manage that, the lucky bastard?’

Ashling found it hard to care. Men and their music collections. Phelim used to be the exact same.

‘Fuck’s sake!’ Ted burst out. ‘Burning Spear’s first two albums on Studio One! I thought you could only get them in Jamaica.’

‘Dylan and Clodagh went to Jamaica on the honeymoon,’ Ashling deadpanned.

‘Lucky for some.’ He managed to inject a world of longing into those three words. ‘… The complete Billie Holiday on Verve,’ Ted sounded like he might puke. ‘Where’d he get that? I’ve been looking for years for it!… Tool,’ he added.

‘Aha!’ He pounced gleefully on something. ‘This is a right skeleton in the cupboard! What’s Mr Cooler-than-thou doing with a Simply Red album? There goes his street-cred.’

‘Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s Clodagh’s.’

‘Clodagh likes Simply Red?’ Ted’s face was a picture.

‘She used to, in any case.’

‘“Used to” is OK.’ Ted was weak with relief. He thought Clodagh was a goddess, but if she was a fan of Mick Hucknall’s he might have to reconsider. Surely no goddess could have such an inexcusable lapse in taste?

As soon as The Little Mermaid ended, Craig and Molly clamoured loudly to be entertained. But when Ted tried his owl routine on them, Molly told him to go home now and Craig began to cry. Ted took it hard, especially when Ashling hiding and reappearing from behind a paper bag had them in convulsions.

‘Little bastards,’ he muttered. ‘Loads of people would give their right arm for this opportunity.’

‘But they’re only kids.’

Craig began pulling at Ashling, demanding 7-Up. When it didn’t appear instantly, the tears started again.

‘Spoilt brat.’ Ted was scathing.

‘No, he’s not.’

‘Yes, he is. If he lived in Bangladesh, he’d be working eighteen hours a day in a sweatshop, you know… Then he’d have something to cry about,’ Ted added, darkly.

The evening was a very long one. Ashling and Ted had to provide a non-stop supply of laughs, stories, sweets, tickling, drinks, lorry-throwing, Barbie-football and that old favourite, Hiding Your Hand up Your Sleeve.

‘Where’s Molly’s hand gone?’ Ted asked wearily, as gleefully Molly secreted her hand up her sleeve for the millionth time. ‘Oh dear,’ he said flatly. ‘Molly’s lost her hand. Someone’s stolen it.’ Then as Molly triumphantly thrust her hand back into the public arena, Ted said moodily, ‘Oh what a surprise! Here it is again. Where’s Molly’s hand gone… ?’

When bedtime came, getting them to go to bed and stay there was like trying to nail jelly to the wall.

‘If you don’t go to sleep, the bogeyman will come and get you,’ Ted threatened.

‘There’s no bogeyman,’ Craig said confidently. ‘Mummy said.’

Ted reconsidered. Surely something must scare him? ‘OK, if you don’t go to sleep, Mick Hucknall will come and get you.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I’ll show you.’ Ted nipped downstairs, grabbed the CD and ran back up. ‘That’s Mick Hucknall.’

Ashling, downstairs savouring a moment of peace, looked up in alarm as a terrible, screaming cacophany broke out in the room above her. Seconds later Ted appeared, looking furtive and guilty.

‘What’s going on?’ she demanded.

‘Nothing.’

‘I’d better go up.’

Ashling spent several fruitless minutes trying to calm Craig.

‘What did you say to him?’ she accused Ted, when she came back down. ‘He’s absolutely inconsolable.’

Dylan and Clodagh arrived home, swaddled in the kind of loving glow that makes everyone else feel excluded and lacking. They lurched into the house, Clodagh’s arm around Dylan, his hand firmly on her bum (on the side that wasn’t covered in blackberry jam).

As soon as Ashling and Ted had been dispatched into the night, Clodagh winked at Dylan, nodded at upstairs and said, ‘Come on.’ It was exactly four weeks since the last time they’d had sex, but she was so awash with drunken magnanimity that she would have thrown in a bonus session even if he hadn’t been due one.

‘I’ll just switch off lights and lock doors,’ he said.

‘Hurry,’ she said coquettishly, safe in the knowledge that he wouldn’t.

They’d long passed the stage of luxuriously undressing each other. Clodagh was already naked under the duvet when Dylan came to bed and a swift, thirty-second swish of lycra and cotton had him stepping out of his clothes. Clodagh lay back, closed her eyes and submitted to being kissed for a few minutes; then, as always, Dylan moved to her nipples. When he finished at that, there was a silent, unacknowledged struggle. Because this was the point at which Dylan usually liked to shimmy down her body to administer cunnilingus, but Clodagh couldn’t bear it. It was so boring and simply added several wasted minutes to the whole procedure. Tonight she won, managing to head him off at the pass. She proceeded directly to fellatio, treating him to between four and five minutes of it, and its cessation was his cue to climb aboard. For a special treat – birthdays and anniversaries – Clodagh would go on top. But tonight wasn’t the deluxe version, just the standard missionary one. She clasped Dylan to her in a smooth ballet of comfortable familiarity. Once she was into it, it wasn’t so bad, she decided. It was the anticipation that distressed her so. As always, Dylan waited for her to pretend to come before gathering pace, pumping away as though a stopwatch was being held over him. It’s about time we did this room up again, Clodagh thought, as he machined back and forth in a panting, whimpering blur. The carpet could probably stay, but Yd really like to paint the walls.

‘Oh God,’ Dylan begged, shoving his hands under her buttocks and banging himself into her at ever-faster speed. ‘Oh God, oh God.’

Automatically, Clodagh obliged with an absent-minded moan. That should hurry things along. Purple and cream walls, perhaps. Then Dylan was spasming in ecstasy and collapsing with a groan. The only break from the norm was that they weren’t interrupted by either of their children, clamouring to join in.