‘That’s why I’m back so early – it’s not even quarter to twelve!’

‘The cab’s coming at seven and you haven’t even packed.’

‘I’ll do it in the morning.’

‘There’s no way we’re missing that train, Jamie. I’m not having you let Mum and Dad down.’

‘For Christ’s sake, we won’t miss the train and I won’t let anyone down. Go to sleep.’ I didn’t want to get into a second row, my nerves were roasted. All I could think was how sick I was of Kit. Sick of being with him, sick of thinking about him.

Navigating my way to the bed in near darkness, I swallowed a couple of paracetamol, drank a pint of water, and tried to steal a few hours’ respite from my churning imagination.

26

24–26 December 2019

If I’d been anywhere else but the Armstrong household over Christmas I might not have been able to compose myself, but Clare’s parents, Rod and Audrey, were a balm for my inflamed pride, my animal wounds. Like their Georgian apartment in Edinburgh’s New Town, they were elegant and patrician: there was little chance of a raised voice here, much less a raised fist.

The four hours’ kip I got on the train helped. Clare had booked first class and it was comfortable enough for me to rest properly, even if she did toe me a couple of times from the seat opposite to try to jolt me from snoring.

‘Three whole days without clients,’ she told her parents, luxuriating in the first fireside drink of Christmas Eve. The tree was hung with dozens of wooden figures from The Nutcracker, all with movable joints and golden chains. ‘I turned my out-of-office on last night.’

‘Well, I hope you don’t die of heartbreak,’ Audrey said. She couldn’t have known, of course, that her de facto son-in-law did have reason to pine – for his young, married lover, with whom he was unlikely to be able to connect over the Christmas break. As Clare talked about the freefalling London property market and an asking-price offer on a house in Blackheath she was hoping to receive on Friday, I realized how out of touch I’d become with her work news. I knew more about the lettings arm.

‘What happened to your hand?’ Audrey asked me.

‘He burned it on the coffee machine at work yesterday,’ Clare said. ‘He didn’t even notice it till this morning.’

‘I did,’ I corrected her, ‘I just hadn’t bothered bandaging it. I had to run out to meet people for drinks.’

‘Enough drinks to kill the pain, presumably,’ Rod said. ‘Does it hurt?’

‘It did when I woke up, but I’m maxed out on paracetamol now, so I can’t feel a thing.’ The same went for the bruising to my collarbone caused by a savage headbutt from Kit. I wondered if I’d marked him in our squalid little tussle.

‘Careful about mixing the painkillers with the booze,’ Rod warned, but he needn’t have worried: I intended Christmas to be an exercise in moderation, right down to the pleasing economy of the single call I would make to my family on Christmas morning (never more than a few feet from an Armstrong, I would not be making one to Melia). On Monday night, I’d resented the lack of interest shown in me by Gretchen’s young colleague, but now I relished sharing as little of myself as I could get away with, concentrating gratefully on my hosts. I could tell Clare was pleased with me. In the weeks since our argument after that unpleasant last drink with Kit and Melia, she’d not sulked – that was not her style – but I’d been aware of a withdrawal on various counts: physical affection, humour, the benefit of the doubt. In no position to object, I’d lain low and we’d co-existed peacefully enough.

One useful side effect had been her not deigning to ask the reasons for my weekly – sometime twice-weekly – late arrivals home following liaisons with Melia, but, doubtless, blaming Kit on principle.

Not until we went for a walk on our own on Boxing Day morning to Calton Hill did either of us mention the Ropers.

‘I had a bit of a row with Kit on Monday,’ I said, at the summit, as if the subject could only be broached here, with the wind gusting in her ears and her eyes misled by the panorama. It was all there, solid and unchanging: the castle and Princes Street; Holyroodhouse Palace and Arthur’s Seat; the Leith docks and the distant haze of the Forth Estuary.

Her head turned only fractionally. ‘What about?’ ‘Nothing in particular. I just think we rub each other up the wrong way these days. Like I said, I’m worried about him.’

‘Right.’ Melia’s problem, that’s what she’d said.

‘To be honest, I’m not sure he’s that stable,’ I added. ‘He’s more of a cokehead than I thought.’

We looked across to Arthur’s Seat. Right in front of us a young couple preened with a selfie stick, adjusting their poses repeatedly.

‘You haven’t got involved on any deeper level, have you?’ Clare said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know, sharing his habit. You don’t owe any money or anything?’

‘God, no.’ I paused. ‘He does, that’s for sure.’

‘We all know he does. If this was the nineteenth century, he’d be in the Marshalsea. Melia as well, probably.’

‘He did ask me for a loan a while ago,’ I confessed. ‘He made me feel really guilty when I said no.’

‘Be careful. That kind of thing is only ever the start. He could end up blackmailing you or something.’

I stole a wary glance her way: what did she mean by that? The conversation was burrowing closer to the bone than I cared to allow and I let a minute pass, willing the city – at once familiar and remote – to work its magic on me, on her. I had the sense that if we’d settled here and not London I’d never have accepted that I owned precisely nought per cent of the home I lived in; I’d never have had to leave my job because the commute felt life-threatening; perhaps never have begun an affair with a woman like Melia – or any woman. In the end, was Kit right? Was it all down to property? Not just the financial security of it, but the pride of ownership. The power of possession.

My gaze settled on the National Monument, Edinburgh’s unfinished Parthenon– unfinishedbecausethemoneyranout.

‘You want to know what I think?’ Clare said.

‘What?’

‘I think you need to cut ties.’

‘With Kit? I was thinking the same myself. Thought maybe I’ll ask to change my hours at the café so I can get a different boat from him. It would mean working some weekends, but I—’

She interrupted: ‘Not just him, Jamie. Her, as well.’

I swallowed. It was out of the question not to meet her eye, avoidance would only have broadcast my guilt, but when I did I found her gaze to be more co-operative than accusing.

‘Both of us, I mean,’ she said. ‘There’s something not right about those two.’

‘I thought you liked Melia.’

‘I do, but maybe not as much as I did. There’s a reason “Melia” gets shortened to “Me”. It’s because she’s a complete narcissist.’

Wow. I breathed cold clear air into my lungs, expelled it in a mist. ‘Okay. Well, that’s fine in theory, but how can you do it when you work with her?’