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, for heaven’s sake! Luke Livingstone—who is very male indeed, I can assure you, and I damn well ought to know because you’veshared my bed for three decades, and we’ve had three children in that time.’
    ‘I’ve tried to be.’
    ‘No . . .’ I was desperately trying to think, trying to make him see how insane this was. ‘You are my friend, my lover, my husband. I would have known.’
    ‘I hoped you did know, in some way.’
    Memories were imps, their grinning faces forcing cracks in my denial: Luke dressing for a tarts and vicars party, wearing my shortest skirt and putting on make-up with surprising skill. He was the life and soul of the party that day, flamboyant and loud, as though the costume freed him from his usual reticence. Nice legs! people yelled across the room, as he danced with our hostess. You’d make a hell of a babe, Luke.
    ‘We’re so happy,’ I said. ‘Aren’t we? Why tell me this now?’
    ‘Because I’ve come to the end of my road, Eilish. The very end. I can’t go on. I was facing a choice last night: to end my life, or to accept what I’ve always really been. I am so sorry.’
    The nail pierced my back, holding me upright. If I’d been less stunned I might have asked him what he thought would happen next; I might have asked about practicalities—what exactly had he chosen? But such questions were far, far beyond me.
    ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘when I was walking up the aisle, and you turned around and smiled at me . . . I’ve never forgotten that, Luke . . . when our children were born, when we lost Charlotte, when we talked about retirement, made all those plans for our future—’ He began to speak, but I held up a hand. ‘No. Let me ask. I have to ask. All those times we’ve made love and fallen asleep in one another’s arms, and woken up together, and talked and worried and argued and kissed and laughed at ridiculous things . . . day after day, year after year . . . all our lives, when I thought we were happy together, when I thought you desired and valued me . . . all these years you’ve been lying about something so utterly fundamental?’
    He shook his head. I thought I heard him say again that he was sorry.
    ‘I don’t believe it,’ I whispered. ‘You’ve been lying about everything you think, everything you feel, everything that you are?’
    He didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. I could see the answer for myself.
    The chair clattered as I stood up. Casino leaped off Luke’s lap. ‘I don’t understand this. You are Luke. You are Luke . Luke Livingstone. That’s who you are. I’ve given you my whole life.’ My voice was rising. ‘You are Luke, you hear me?’
    Tripping over Casino, I fled up the staircase. Our bedroom has always been my refuge, but now there was nowhere to hide. The nightmare had come with me. I lay across the bed, pressing my face into the pillow that still smelled of Luke. My Luke. The real Luke, not the madman downstairs. My heart wasn’t quite broken yet, because I didn’t quite believe. How could I believe something so utterly impossible?
    I turned over and felt my slip slide up my thigh. Honey-coloured silk. I’d thought it endearing that Luke had chosen it, and brought it home gift-wrapped in the shop’s tissue paper and ribbons. Dear God, dear God, what if he’d enjoyed being in there?
    Those grinning imps were slipping in through the cracks, bearing more insidious memories from down the years. Didn’t you know? they giggled. Or didn’t you want to know? My favourite high-heeled shoes, and that clinging woollen dress, all suddenly stretched and too big for me; the day I thought there were traces of lipstick on Luke’s mouth but brushed the thought away because it was terrifying; those times when I felt my man was hiding some secret darkness from me, but I was too afraid to ask.
    The world was upside down. There was nothing for me to hold onto. I was going to be flung off, into the lonely reaches of outer