At seven o’clock, as arranged, Lisa went to the bar at the Clarence. Oliver rose when he saw her.

‘What d’you want to drink? White wine?’

White wine was her drink, at least it had been when they’d been together. He’d remembered.

‘No,’ she said, hoping to wound. ‘A cosmopolitan.’

‘I might have known.’

She watched him, big and bulky, loud and forthright, cheerfully joking with the bar staff. How come he always occupied more space than he actually filled? Her head tightened and lifted – he was so familiar she almost didn’t know him.

Returning with her drink, he got straight to the point. ‘Have you got a solicitor, babes?’

‘Weeell…’

‘We both need a solicitor,’ he explained patiently.

‘For the divorce?’ She tried to sound blasé but it was the first time the word had ever been actually uttered as a real likelihood.

‘’s right.’ He was brisk, businesslike. ‘Now, you know the deal –’

She didn’t, actually.

‘Our marriage has irretrievably broken down, but that’s not enough to get divorced. We need to give a reason. If we were already separated for two years we could just do it. But until then, one of us has to sue the other. For desertion, unreasonable behaviour or adultery.’

‘Adultery!’ Lisa bristled. She’d been totally faithful while they’d been together. ‘I never…’

‘And neither did I.’ Oliver was equally emphatic. ‘As for desertion –’

‘Yeah, you left me.’ She was keen to blame.

‘You gave me no choice, babes. But you could sue me for that. Only thing is we have to be separated for two years before you can use desertion as grounds, and we want to get this sorted soon?’ He threw her a questioning look and waited for her to concur.

‘Yeah,’ she said snippily. ‘Sooner the better.’

‘So that leaves us unreasonable behaviour. We need five examples.’

‘Unreasonable behaviour? What’s that?’ She was almost laughing, forgetting briefly that this had anything to do with her. ‘Like doing the hoovering at three in the morning.’

‘Or working every weekend and bank holiday.’ His tone was bitter. ‘Or pretending you want to get pregnant and continuing to take the Pill.’

‘Whatever.’ Her expression was hostile.

‘We have a choice. I can sue you or you can sue me.’

‘So you admit you were unreasonable too?’

He sighed heavily. ‘It’s only a formality, Lees, it’s not about allocating blame. The person who gets sued doesn’t get punished in any way. So which is it to be? You sue me?’

‘You decide, seeing as you know so much about it all,’ Lisa said unpleasantly.

He gave her a long look, as if trying to make sense of her, then he shifted. ‘If that’s what you want. Now, costs. We each pay our own solicitor but we split the court costs between us, yes?’

‘Why do we need solicitors? If we flew to Vegas for a quickie wedding, can’t we fly to Reno for a quickie divorce?’

‘Not that simple, babes. Think about it, we own a property together.’

‘Yeah, but we each know how much we contributed to… OK, I’ll get a solicitor.’ She couldn’t take another second of this, so she rearranged herself in her chair and asked with brittle gaiety, ‘How’s work been?’

‘Loco. Just got back from France and before that I was in Bali.’

Lucky bastard.

‘After here, I’ve got a quietish time until the shows.’ He nodded at Lisa’s tailored two-piece. ‘I haven’t seen that suit before.’

She inspected herself. ‘Nicole Farhi.’ Lifted from a shoot the previous January, she’d attempted to hang the blame on Kate Moss.

‘I don’t like it.’ Oliver said.

‘What’s wrong with it?’ She’d always valued his opinion on her clothes and hair.

‘Nothing. I mean I don’t like that I’ve not seen it before.’

She knew what he meant. She felt an aching affront that his hair was longer, that his watch was new, that since she’d last seen him he’d travelled halfway around the world and she’d known absolutely nothing about it.

‘You look different,’ he said.

‘Do I?’

‘No.’ He shook his head and laughed with an odd breath-lessness. ‘I don’t fucking know.’

She knew exactly what he meant. Extreme familiarity and empty distance hung together in strange coexistence. Both were present equally, so it felt that two different realities had been sliced and put back together incorrectly.

‘Excuse me!’ He interrupted himself to pick up her wrist and, with his other hand, turn her fingers to him. There was something he wanted to see. He was rough and the angle was painful. ‘You don’t wear your wedding ring any more?’ he accused, his brown eyes contemptuous.

She tugged her hand away and glared. Rubbing her sore wrist she accused, ‘You hurt me!’

‘You hurt me’

‘What’s the big deal with the ring?’ Her face was flushed and angry. ‘You’re the one talking divorce.’

‘You were the one who brought it up in the first place!’

‘Only because you were leaving me.’

‘Only because you gave me no choice.’

They glared at each other, breathing hard as emotion over-spilled.

‘Do you want,’ he demanded, his expression like thunder, his eyes never leaving her face, ‘to come up to my room?’

‘Come on.’ Already she was on her feet.

The first kiss was a frantic, teeth-clashing grind. Trying to do too much at once he pulled at her hair, tugged at her jacket, kissed her too hard, then tore off his shirt.

‘Wait, wait, wait.’ Looking exhausted, he laid his naked back against the door.

‘What?’ she mumbled, numbed by the sight of his hard polished chest.

‘Let’s start this again.’ He reached and pulled her to him with delicate tenderness. She buried her face in his chest. The special Oliver smell. Forgotten, but remembered with such stupefying, sense-filling impact. Peppery, sweet-spicy, and something unique and indescribable that didn’t come from soap or a bottle or from his clothes. A smell that was just him.