What about my friend Sinead? Garv was so kind to her. But it was only three months since she’d been given the road by her boyfriend, Dave. Surely she was far too fragile for an affair with her friend’s husband – and far too fragile for any normal man to try it on? Unless it was her fragility that Garv liked. But wasn’t he getting enough of that from me? Why go out for broken crockery when you’ve got it in absolute smithereens at home?

Beside me, I realized that Garv was awake too – his fake deep-breathing was the giveaway. So we could talk. Except we couldn’t, we’d been trying for months. I didn’t hear the intake of breath that precedes speech, so I was startled when the ink-dark silence was violated by Garv’s voice. ‘Sorry.’

Sorry. The worst thing he could have said. The word hung in the darkness and wouldn’t go away. In my head I heard it echo again, then again. Each time fainter, until I wondered if I’d just imagined hearing it. Minutes passed. Without ever replying, I turned my back to him and surprised myself by falling asleep again.

In the morning, we woke late, and there was blood under my nails from scratching my arm. My eczema was back in force –I’d have to start wearing gloves in bed again if this continued. But would it continue? Again I got that falling sensation.

I busied myself with showers and coffee, and when Garv said, ‘Maggie,’ and tried to stop my incessant motion, I neatly sidestepped him and said, without eye contact, ‘I’ll be late.’ I left, carrying that empty, four-in-the-morning feeling with me.

Despite sidestepping Garv, I was late for work and the contract wasn’t on Frances’s desk by nine-thirty. She sighed, ‘Oh Maggie,’ in an I’m-not-angry-with-you-I’m-disappointed way. It’s meant to reach the parts a bollocking doesn’t and make you feel shitty and ashamed. However, I appreciated not being shouted at. Not the reaction Frances was looking for, I suspect.

I felt entirely lost, but at the same time unnaturally calm –almost as if I’d been waiting for a catastrophe and it was a weird sort of relief that it had finally happened. Because I had no idea how to behave in these circumstances, I decided to mimic everyone else there and immerse myself in work. Wasn’t it strange, I thought, that after such a dreadful shock I was still functioning as normal? Then I noticed I kept botching the double-click on my mouse because my hand was trembling.

For seconds, I’d manage to lose myself in a contract clause, but all the time the knowledge surrounded me: Something is very wrong. Over the years, like every couple, Garv and I had had our rows, but not even the most vicious of those had ever felt like this. The worst scrap had been one of those odd ones which had started out as a muscular discussion over whether a new skirt of mine was brown or purple, and had unexpectedly disintegrated into a bitter stand-off, with accusations of colour-blindness and hyper-sensitivity flying about.

(Garv: ‘ What’s wrong with it being brown?’

Me: ‘ Everything! But it’s not brown, it’s purple, you stupid colour-blind fucker.’

Garv: ‘ Look, it’s only a skirt. All I said was I was surprised at you buying a brown one.’

Me: ‘ But I DIDN’! It’s PURPLE!’

Him: ‘ You’re overreacting.’

Me: ‘ I’m NOT. I would NEVER buy a brown skirt. Do you know the first thing about me?’)

At the time I’d thought I’d never forgive him. I’d been wrong. But this time was different, I was horribly sure of it.

At lunch-time, I just couldn’t find it in me to care about my urgent piles of work, so I went to Grafton Street, looking for comfort. Which took the form of spending money – again. Unenthusiastically, I bought a scented candle and a cheapish (relatively speaking) copy of a Gucci bag. But neither of them did anything to fill the void. Then I stopped into a chemist to get painkillers for my tooth and got intercepted by a white-coated, orange-faced woman who told me that if I bought two Clarins products – one of which had to be skincare – I’d get a free gift. Listlessly I shrugged, ‘Fine.’

She couldn’t believe her luck, and when she suggested the dearest stuff – serums in 100 ml bottles – again I lifted and slumped my shoulders. ‘Sure.’

I liked the sound of a free gift – I found the idea of a present very consoling. But back at work, when I opened my present, it was a lot less exciting than it had looked on the picture: funny-coloured eyeshadow, a mini-mini-mini tube of foundation, four drops of eye-cream and a thimble of vinegary perfume. Anti-climax set in, and then, in an unexpected reprieve of normality, came guilt, which swelled big and ugly as the afternoon lengthened. I had to stop spending money. So as soon as I could reasonably leave, I hurried back to Grafton Street to try to return the handbag – I couldn’t return the Clarins stuff because I’d already tried the free gift – but they wouldn’t give me a refund, only a credit note. And before I’d made it back to the car, my eye was caught by yellow flowery flip-flops in a shoe-shop window and, like an out-of-body experience, I found myself inside, handing over my card and spending another thirty quid. It wasn’t safe to let me out.

That evening I went to a work thing and did something I don’t usually do at work things – I got drunk. Messy drunk, so bad that on one of my many trips back from the loo, when I met Stuart Keating, I ended up lunging at him. Stuart worked in another department and he’d always been nice to me; I can still see the surprise on his face as I zoomed in on him. Then we were kissing, but only for a second before I had to disengage. What was I doing? ‘ Sorry,’ I exclaimed and, appalled at myself, I returned to the party, picked up my jacket and left without saying goodbye to anyone. From across the room Frances watched me, her expression unreadable.

When I came home, Garv was waiting bolt upright, like an anxious parent. He tried to talk to me, but I mumbled drunkenly that I had to go to sleep and lurched to the bedroom, Garv in hot pursuit. I stripped off my clothes, letting them lie where they fell, and climbed between the sheets. ‘Drink some water.’ I heard the clatter as Garv put a glass on my bedside table. I ignored it and him, but just before I sank into the merciful oblivion of sleep, I remembered I hadn’t taken out my contact lenses. Too tired, drunk, whatever to get on my feet and go to the bathroom, I slipped them out and plopped them into the handily placed glass of water, promising myself I’d rinse them good and proper in their solution in the morning.