He handed her a small dark wooden doll with a Post-it note stuck to it saying “Alice.” The doll seemed to be an African woman in tribal dress with an oversized head.

“That’s so sweet of your wife.” Alice handled the doll reverently. Was his wife African perhaps and this was some sort of mystical tribal heirloom?

“She bought it off the Internet,” confided Dino. “For her cousin, who couldn’t get pregnant. Nine months later—baby! Although to be honest, not such a beautiful baby.” He slapped his knee, his face creased with mirth. “I say to my wife, That’s one ugly baby! Got a big head, like the doll!” He could hardly speak, he was laughing so hard now. “Big head, I said. Like the doll!”

Alice smiled. Dino handed her another coffee and he became serious again.

“Nick came in the other day,” he said. “He didn’t look too good. I said, You should get back together with your wife. I said, It’s not right. I remember when I first opened the shop and you came in every weekend with little Madison. All three of you in overalls. She used to help you with the painting. You two were so proud of her. Never saw prouder parents! Remember?”

“Hmmmm,” said Alice.

“I told Nick that you two should get back together, be a family again,” said Dino. “I said, What went so wrong you can’t fix? None of my business, right? My wife says, Dino, it’s not your business! I say, I don’t care, I say what I think, that’s just me.”

“What did Nick say?” asked Alice. She was already halfway through the next cup of coffee.

“He said, ‘I would fix it if I could, mate.’ ”

Alice drove home chanting Nick’s words in her head. He would if he could, so therefore . . . why not!

She had the takeaway cup of coffee in a handy cup holder close to the steering wheel. She found she could steer this enormous car with one hand and take sips of coffee with the other. So many useful new skills! The caffeine was making her tremble with energy. She felt like her eyes were protruding. When the light changed to green and the car in front didn’t move straightaway, she shoved it along with a bossy beep of her horn.

That sharp voice was back in her head, working out everything she had to do before she picked the children up at 3:30 p.m. “You need to be on time, Mum,” Tom had told her. “Monday afternoons are a pretty tight schedule.”

Well, you can’t spend your day lounging around eating custard tart. You won’t fit into those beautiful clothes for long, will you? Speaking of which, what about laundry? You probably should do laundry when you get home. Mothers are always complaining about washing.

What else do they complain about? Groceries! When do you shop? Check pantry. Do list. You probably have a list somewhere. You seem like the sort of person who has a list. What about dinner tonight? Snacks when they come from school? Were the children used to freshly baked cookies on arrival?

Ring Sophie. She’s your best friend! You must have told her something about what’s going on.

Your diary says you’ve got a Mega Meringue meeting at 1 p.m. Presumably you’ve got to run it. Great! That should be a hoot. Find out where it is! How? Ring someone. Ring that Kate Harper if you must. Or your “boyfriend.”

Would fix it if he could. Would fix it if he could.

Laundry.

Yes, you already said that.

Laundry!

Yes, calm down.

She shouldn’t have had the two cups of coffee. Her heart was beating much too fast. She took a few deep, shaky breaths to steady herself. She couldn’t keep up with her own body. She felt as if she needed to run crazily across a huge expanse of grass, flinging her body about like a puppy let off its leash.

When she got home she ran through the house as if she were in some sort of weird competition, gathering piles of clothes from laundry hampers and the floors of the children’s bedrooms and bathrooms. There was a lot. She pounded down the stairs to the laundry. No surprise to see a huge, shiny-white washing machine taking up half the room. She lifted the lid ready to toss in the clothes when she felt a rush of feelings. Embarrassed. Betrayed. Shocked.

What did it mean? The memory flipped to the front of her brain like a neat index card. Of course. Something had happened right here. Right here in this extraordinarily clean laundry. Something horrible.

That’s right. It was a party.

In the summer. Still warm late in the evening. There were tubs of ice on the laundry floor. Bottles of beer and wine and champagne poking out of the melting ice cubes. She went to get a new bottle of champagne and she was laughing as she pushed open the door and when she saw them, she automatically said, “Hi!” like an idiot, before her brain caught up with what they were doing, what she was seeing. A tiny graceful woman with closely cropped red hair sitting up on the washing machine, her legs apart, and Nick standing in front of her, his hands flat on the machine on either side of her legs, his head bent. Her husband was kissing another woman in the laundry.

Alice stared down at the pile of clothes in the machine. She could see the woman’s face so clearly. The delicate bones of her face. She could even hear her voice. Sugar-sweet and childlike to match her tiny body. It made her teeth ache.

She poured in a scoop of washing powder and slammed down the machine lid. How dare Nick guffaw when she asked if he’d had an affair? That kiss was worse than catching them in bed together. It was worse because it was so obviously a kiss at the beginning. Early kisses were so much more erotic than early sex. Sex at the beginning of a relationship was fumbly and silly and vaguely gynecological, like a doctor’s appointment. But fully clothed kisses, before you’d slept together, were delicious and mysterious.