Lukas is laughing. I worry that he can tell something’s wrong. ‘It would have been quite a coincidence! Shall we get another drink?’

I say no. ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

I try to calm down.

‘So how about you? Do you meet up with many people you speak to online?’

‘No, not really. No.’

‘But you met with me.’

‘Yes. Yes I did.’

He takes my hand again. He’s looking me in the eye.

I can hardly breathe. He didn’t know my sister. He never met her.

‘Why?’

I should stand up. I know that. I should walk away, tell him I’m going to the bathroom, never come back. It’d be easy enough; he doesn’t know where I live.

I will, I tell myself. Soon.

‘I like you, I guess.’

‘And I like you.’

He leans towards me. He sighs. I can feel his breath on my cheek.

‘I like you a great deal.’

I can feel the warmth of his skin, I can smell his aftershave, mingled with sweat. He’s opened me. Something I’ve been holding in check for weeks, months, years, is flooding me.

‘Let’s go upstairs.’

‘No. No, I’m sorry—’

‘Jayne …’ He’s almost whispering. ‘Beautiful Jayne … I’ll be gone tomorrow. This is our one chance. You want it, don’t you? You want me?’

I look back at him. I feel more alive than I can remember. I don’t want it to stop. Not yet. It can’t be over.

I nod.

‘Yes.’

He’s kissing me, his hands are around my waist, he’s pulling me towards him and yet at the same time pushing me back, back, back towards the bed. I fall backwards on to it and then he’s on top of me and I’m pulling the shirt from his trousers, unbuttoning it blindly and with clumsy hands, and his hands are on my chest, and then his mouth, and it’s all sweat and fury and I don’t resist, because there’s no point, that line is already crossed, it was crossed when I walked up to him in the bar, crossed when I left the house to come here, crossed when I said, ‘Yes, yes, yes, I’ll come and meet you,’ and there’s no point in pretending otherwise. My betrayal has been gradual but inexorable, the sweep of the hand on a clock, and it’s led me here, to this afternoon. And right now, with his hands on my naked flesh, and mine on his, with his prick stiffening between my legs, I’m not sorry. I have no regrets at all. I realize how stupid I’ve been. All along, from the very beginning, this is what it’d been about.

When we finish we lie on our backs, side by side. The afterglow. But it’s awkward somehow; I understand now why it’s called the little death, but even if that’s true at least it means I was alive before.

He turns to face me. He props his head on his arm, and again I’m aware of the years between us, the fact that he’s Kate’s age, more or less. His skin is taut and firm, his muscles flex when he moves, visible, alive. As we made love I’d been shocked by this, and now I wonder if it’s something I ever had with Hugh. I can’t quite remember; it’s as if my memories of a younger him have somehow been overwritten by all that’s happened since.

I remind myself that being ten years younger than me makes Lukas twenty younger than my husband.

He reaches out to stroke my arm. ‘Thank you …’ I feel it should be me thanking him, but I don’t. We say nothing for a while. I look at his body, now that it’s still. I look at his stomach, which is firm, and at the hairs on his chest, none of which are grey. I examine his mouth, his lips, which are moist. I look into his eyes and see he’s looking at me in the same way.

He kisses me. ‘You hungry? Shall we get something to eat?’

‘In the restaurant?’

‘We could get something sent up.’

It must be nearly three, I think, possibly even later. Connor will be back soon. And even if he weren’t, even if I had all the time in the world, having lunch with this man seems somehow like a step too far. It would be a sharing of more than just our bodies, would imply a greater intimacy than what we’ve already done, which was just lust, and flesh.

I smile.

‘What’s funny?’

‘Nothing.’

I realize a part of me wants to get away. I need to be on my own, to find solitude and process what I’ve just done, and the reasons I did it. I didn’t mean to, when I came here, yet here I am. ‘I’d love some lunch, but I probably ought to get going. Soon.’

He strokes my shoulder. ‘Have you got to go?’

‘Yes.’ I search for an excuse. ‘I’m meeting someone. A friend.’

He nods his head. I realize I’d like him to ask me to stay, I’d like him to beg me to cancel my friend, I’d like to see disappointment when I tell him I can’t.

But I know he won’t ask. Spending the rest of the day together was never part of the deal he thought he’d struck with me; it’s against the terms of our engagement. And so the silence between us extends, becomes almost uncomfortable. The schizophrenia of lust; it’s hard to believe the intimacy we shared just a few moments ago can evaporate almost in an instant. I become aware of the details in the room, the clock on the TV that’s mounted on the wall opposite, the fireplace, the stack of old hardback books on the mantelpiece that surely no one reads. I hadn’t noticed them before.

‘When’s your flight?’

He sighs. ‘Not till tonight. Eight o’clock, I think.’ He kisses me. I wonder dimly why he hasn’t checked out, then realize I’m the reason. ‘I have all afternoon.’ He kisses me again. Harder, this time. ‘Stay …’

I think of him getting on his flight, going back home. I think of never seeing him again. I remember when I’d thought the same thing about Marcus, when I believed that he’d meet someone else in Berlin, someone more interesting, and I would end up coming home, back to Kate and my father, my old life. But he hadn’t. Our love had deepened, intensified. In winter we would open the window of our apartment and crawl out on to the cold ledge. We’d wrap ourselves in a blanket and look at the Fernsehturm glowing in the bright blue sky, talking about our future, all the places we’d go and the things we’d see. Or else we’d take a bottle of cheap wine, or vodka, to Tiergarten, or hang out at Zoo Station. I had my camera; I took pictures of the rent boys, the dropouts and runaways. We met people, our lives expanded, opened out. I missed Kate dreadfully, but I didn’t regret leaving her behind.

But that was the old me. I can’t behave like that any more.

‘I’m sorry,’ I begin. I have the distinct impression that I’m slipping away, that Jayne – the me, the version of me, that is able to do what I’ve just done – is disappearing. Soon it will be replaced by Julia – mother, wife and, once upon a time, daughter. I’m not sure I want her to go.

‘I really have to—’

‘Please don’t.’ He’s fierce now, and for a moment he looks so desperate, so alive with desire, that I feel a sudden rush which takes me by surprise. It’s happiness, I think. I’d forgotten what it was like, this pure, uncomplicated happiness, more powerful than any drug. It’s not what I just did, what I realize I’m about to do again. It’s not that I’ve deceived my husband and got away with it. It’s me. I have something, now, something that’s mine. A private thing, a secret. I can keep it hidden, in a box, and take it out occasionally, like a treasure. I have something that belongs to no one else.

‘Stay,’ he says. ‘For a while at least.’ And I do.

Chapter Fifteen

I go home. When I open the door I find a handful of postcards pushed through the letterbox. I bend down to pick them up and with a gasp of shock see that they’re the postcards that prostitutes leave in phone boxes. On each there’s a picture of a woman, a different woman, wearing lingerie, or nothing at all, and posing next to a phone number. ‘Hot Young Slut’, says one, ‘Spanking fun’, reads another. Straight away my mind goes to the last thing Paddy had said to me – Fuck you – and straight away I tell myself they’re from him. He’s pushed them through the door in a fit of childish, spiteful anger.