Aidan was up early. I lay in bed and listened to him in the shower, singing to himself. Through half-closed lids, I watched him pulling on his clothes. He sat on the bed beside me; I could feel him watching me and I wanted to scream, kick out, drag my nails over his face, obliterate him. I pretended to be asleep and at last he stood up again.
He went to the shops and came back with a disproportionate number of croissants and pastries that he warmed in the oven. He put a cloth over the little table in the garden and laid it with plates and a jam jar of yellow roses that were bending over our fence from next door. He put strawberries in a bowl. There was a cafetière of coffee for the two of us, with a jug of heated milk on the side, and a mug of foaming hot chocolate for Poppy.
‘And guess what?’ Triumphantly, he produced a packet of marshmallows, ripped it open and dropped two pink and two white ones into her steaming mug. ‘How’s that for a Sunday breakfast, Poppy?’
Poppy looked at her drink, looked at Aidan, looked at me. Her face was blotchy; her mouth was a thin, straight line.
‘No.’
Aidan laughed. I put a pastry on her plate and she pushed it away. I could feel the fury building inside her. Inside me.
‘What are the plans for today?’ Aidan asked.
‘We will play a game,’ said Poppy imperiously. She pointed a finger at me. ‘You have to be the mummy. I’m the baby.’
‘So what am I in this game?’
Poppy flicked an angry glance at Aidan. ‘You aren’t in the game.’
‘Oh dear,’ he said mildly.
Poppy slid off her chair, breakfast untouched, and stomped to the end of the garden, where she squatted to look for worms, jabbing her fingers into the soft earth.
‘I’m sorry about that. But she’ll come round to you,’ I said.
‘I hope so. What am I doing wrong?’
‘You’re doing nothing wrong.’ I took his hand under the table. ‘You’re doing everything right.’
He leaned towards me slightly. ‘God, you are beautiful,’ he said in a low voice.
I lifted his hand and kissed the knuckles. I saw us from the outside: a man and a woman sitting close together in the fresh summer morning, intimate, murmuring softly to each other, while a little girl played a few feet away. I just had to act that woman, smile when she would smile, reach up and touch the man’s face when she would. My role was a woman in love, while my skin crawled.
‘Come back tonight,’ I said softly, as ugly thoughts crammed in my throat. ‘I’ll ask Gina to have Poppy for a sleepover and she can take her to school tomorrow morning.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s not good for us to always have Poppy around. We need some time when it’s just you and me.’
I felt his hand on my thigh.
Smile, I told myself. I smiled. Kiss him, I directed myself, and I put my lips on his lips and felt his mouth curve beneath mine.
‘Now go,’ I said. ‘I’ll give Poppy my undivided attention and tonight I’m all yours.’
He went and I could breathe again.