“Oh, please! You love me! So much that you fucked someone else. Not just once-I could endure that-but many times. And not just fucked her-slept with her, really slept with her, lay with her all night, woke up with her beside you. Lied and lied to me so that you could. How could you do that, Jonathan; how could you want to do that?”

“I… don’t know,” he said, “I really don’t know. It was some kind of… madness. I know, all erring husbands say that, but it’s true; it was as if I became someone else. I didn’t stop loving you, Laura; I didn’t love you any less. It was greed, a grab at something else that I knew I shouldn’t have. I can’t expect you to understand, but-”

“No,” she said, “I don’t understand. Of course I don’t. Well, I can see that you would want her, but the fact is, you couldn’t want her without rejecting me. That’s how I see it, a rejection of me, of what I could do for you, what I could offer. It makes me feel so… so lacking.”

“Lacking in what?” he said, and he looked so bewildered she almost smiled.

“In myself, Jonathan. I know…” She faltered, took a breath, started again. “I know I’m not particularly… sexy. I know that very well. I mean, I like sex, of course…”

“And why do you say ‘of course’?” he said. “It’s not compulsory, you know, liking it.”

“What do you mean?” she said, staring at him in astonishment. “Of course it is; it’s part of a marriage, part of loving someone.”

“And did you really see it as part of loving me?”

“Of course I did”-and she was shouting now-“of course I saw it as that. It was so precious to me; it was ours, and no one else’s, what we shared, only between us. Now it’s not anymore; it’s hers; she’s taken it, or rather you’ve given it; it’s gone; it’s gone forever and no one can bring it back.”

He was absolutely silent, looking at her with a dreadful sadness in his eyes; then he said, “Well, it seems we are done for, then. We can’t be as we were again, can we?”

“No,” she said, “no, we can’t. Never. Never.”

“Well… in that case, maybe I should go again. But I want to say a few things first. That really need saying. I did love you. So very, very much. I do love you very, very much. You are the centre of my life and the centre of our family. I can’t contemplate life without you, Laura. Oh, that’s not some idle suicidal threat; it’s true. Of course I’d go on living, but I’d be changed. I’d be lost. I’d be pathetic, useless, dysfunctional.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’d be just fine. Still the successful, attractive, wonderful Jonathan Gilliatt.”

“Laura, I wouldn’t. I’m only those things because I have you. I’d be anxious; I’d lose confidence, judgment. God in heaven, that happened even when I was living away for those few weeks. I dithered, I took second opinions, I did what others said instead of what I knew was right, I didn’t even know what was right anymore. I made one appalling mistake-I didn’t tell you about it, and you wouldn’t have cared, I should think, given the circumstances-but I missed a cord presentation… You know what that is?”

“The baby’s head pressing on the cord?”

“Exactly. How often I must have bored you with these technical details. Anyway, the baby nearly died; could so well have been brain damaged. And I missed it, because I was so wretched, so… so lost. And deservedly so, no doubt you would say. But… well, that is how dependent on you I am. I’m nothing without you, Laura, nothing at all.”

She was silent.

“I’m talking professionally, of course, but it extends to everything. The charming, attractive Jonathan Gilliatt, as you call him, is a pathetically different chap on his own…”

“Jonathan, this is all very touching, but if I’m so important to you, why risk losing me? Why start an affair with someone else? It doesn’t quite add up. Sorry.”

“I know that. Of course I do. It was insanity. It was dangerous insanity. And I had never done anything like it before, and I never would again. And I know you don’t believe me when I tell you it was over, that I’d finished with her that day, but it’s true. But… haven’t you ever, in your perfectly controlled, beautifully behaved life, Laura, done anything remotely wrong? Or dangerous? Haven’t you ever been tempted to kick over the traces? Oh, not to have an affair, but… I don’t know, spend too much and lie to me about it, or take a day off from cooking and buy a ready meal for the children, or go back to bed or spend the day with your girlfriends and not do any work, or not help with the homework, or…”

“No,” she said, after a few moments’ thought, “no, I haven’t.”

“Well, then,” he said, and he almost smiled, “there you have it, perhaps.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s quite… tough being married to you.”

“Jonathan, I devote my entire life to you. To doing what you want, going where you want me to be. It’s me it’s tough for, I’d say. Not you.”

“No,” he said. “Well, it may be. But that’s why-I think-I had this affair with Abi Scott. I’m trying to be honest now. Because she was bad quite a lot of the time. She wasn’t perfect. She was certainly less perfect than me. She’s greedy and amoral and she tells lies, all the time; I didn’t have to live up to her. And I have to say, I treated her very badly.”

“Oh, my heart bleeds for her. I’m so sorry.”

“I am sorry… actually. I should have shown her some consideration, after the crash. It was a trauma for her, as well, a dreadful one. And what did I do? I was so shit scared of you finding out about her that I threatened her…”

“You what?” She was shocked by that.

“I threatened her. I told her if the didn’t go along with my story that she was a work colleague, I’d tell the police about her drug habit. Not nice behaviour.”

“No. Not really. But…”

“But it was for you. I was so terrified of you finding out-not because you’d be angry, which you’d have every right to be, but because you’d be desperately hurt-that I bullied her. Harassed her ruthlessly. The irony is that if I’d been a bit nicer to her, she probably wouldn’t have turned up here that night. At my party. I was a complete shit. I am a complete shit. Oh, God…”

He looked at her, and she could see tears in his eyes. He brushed them away.

“But, Jonathan,” she said, “I can’t be what I’m not. I’m me. I can’t start being lazy or extravagant, or neglecting the children. Just so that you don’t have to live up to me, as you put it. It’s crazy; you’re talking rubbish. Self-indulgent rubbish.”

“It may be self-indulgent,” he said, “but it isn’t rubbish. Everyone’s so fucking envious of me. Or was. ‘Lucky chap,’ they used to say, ‘being married to Laura; wish my wife was more like Laura.’ God, Mark never stopped going on about it, and how Serena never let him get away with anything, how wonderful you were… You remember that song, that music hall song, ‘She’s Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage’? I felt like a bird in a gilded cage, and I flew out of it… just once, once for the hell of it. Or so I thought. Fate trapped me, shut the door behind me, and I’ll never be back in it now, and it serves me right.”

She said nothing, trying to make sense of what he was saying.

He stood up now, in front of her, staring down into her eyes. “I guess that’s it by way of explanation. I have never regretted anything more. I would give everything I have-everything except you and the children-to alter it. But I can’t. As I said to Charlie in the hospital, you have to live with what you’ve done. There’s no alternative. It’s hardly a justification, I know, but-”

“No,” she said, “it isn’t.”

“Well, that’s my swan song. I’ll go, Laura. Don’t worry. Or if you’d prefer it, I’ll stay here, for the sake of the children, carry on pretending. I’m not sure they could face losing me again. That’s not meant to be emotional blackmail; it’s a fact. But I won’t ask anything of you, anything at all. And when they’re older, maybe we can get divorced. It’s up to you. Whatever you want. It’s the least I can do for you. To make amends. I only ask one thing: that you try to believe how much I love you.”