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bed.
    ‘He’s not keen on me going to Oxford tomorrow,’ she explained. ‘I think it’s some sort of subconscious blackmail.’
    ‘I’ll get up if he wakes again.’
    ‘Thanks,’ she said, appreciating the gesture, but knowing that she was always the first to wake. A moment of fear blossomed and died inside her as she pictured Barry sleeping through a crisis while she was away, but fire was the only thing she could think of that might not alert one of the boys, and she had renewed the batteries in the smoke alarms recently. Gradually, her heartbeat returned to normal, but she felt wide awake now.
    ‘Can’t you sleep, little bear?’ Barry’s voice said next to her.
    Little bear had been his affectionate nickname for her from the moment they were introduced and he discovered her name was Ursula. That was long before the existence of the children’s book which they had read so many times to the boys. He used the endearment rarely enough for it still to make her feel warm all over. She nestled into his side.
    ‘How did you know I was awake?’ she asked him.
    ‘I can tell.’
    ‘Do I snore?’
    ‘Not usually, but there’s a different quality to the breathing.’
    She was surprised he noticed such things.
    ‘It’s not the first time you’ve been away since George was born, is it?’ he asked.
    ‘On my own, I think it is,’ she said.
    ‘I suppose you’re right,’ Barry acknowledged, after giving the question due consideration. ‘We all went to the funeral, didn’t we?’
    She had been thinking the same thing. It unnerved her that their minds were so used to each other that their thoughts often followed the same route.
    ‘I don’t know why,’ she said. ‘It was ridiculous to drag the boys all the way there.’
    ‘Solidarity,’ Barry said, a warm hand seeking and finding hers under the duvet.
    ‘Yes,’ she said, finding it comforting to lie talking in the dark.
    He rolled onto his side and put his other hand on her waist, tentatively.
    ‘Barry, I need to sleep. I’ve got a long journey in the morning,’ she said, in answer to his unspoken question.
    ‘Of course. Sorry.’ He turned away again immediately.
    The air was filled with his disappointment.
    ‘Don’t say sorry,’ she said irritably.
    ‘Well, what am I supposed to say? You never seem to want to any more.’
    ‘I do... it’s just...’
    It’s just that I can’t stop thinking about having sex with someone else. It’s just that I feel guilty because I’m imagining that Liam is doing it with me, not you.
    ‘Oh, I can’t have this conversation now,’ she said impatiently.
    That sentence, she realized, made it inevitable that they would. Now she had acknowledged it as an issue, something to be discussed. If she had let it go then his regret and her guilt would have seemed trivial after sleep.
    ‘It’s just that I’m tired. I’m so tired,’ she turned onto her side and put her arms around him, trying to backtrack, ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered into his nape.
    ‘It’s fine,’ he replied flatly.
    ‘It’s not fine,’ she protested, touching his chest with her fingers. She did not want to go away for the weekend with a bad feeling in the air. He rolled over to face her again, his erection brushing against her thigh. She let him make love to her, and once they had started, they were so used to each other that the familiar rhythms of pleasure took over. It was more like a happy memory for her than an act in which she was participating.
    ‘I love you,’ he said in the moment of exhausted closeness just after she had come.
    The space in which she was meant to say ‘I love you’ back gaped between them.
    ‘Mummy, Mummy, Mummy...’
    George’s cries rescued her.
    ‘I’ll go,’ Barry said, withdrawing, wiping himself with a tissue, and handing one to her.
    She laying staring upwards and listening to the exchange in the next room.
    ‘Now, what’s the matter?’
    ‘I want Mummy.’
    ‘Mummy’s asleep.’
    ‘I