You missed a call from me, I said, when he finally called me back. Three, in fact.

Sorry, he said. Was busy.

Of course, that got my back up, because he’d only nipped out and what was there to be busy about with picking up a pint of milk?

Well, he tried to explain and made some excuse about not answering while he was in the queue but we’ve been here before and I wanted to know who he was talking to that he couldn’t take my call.

The shop assistant, he said, and he had that huffy sound he makes he thinks I’m the one who’s in the wrong.

I asked him was it the pretty young one, with the eyes that look him up and down, and he said he had no idea what I was talking about, but of course he did, because how would he not notice her, with her legs all the way up to her hair and the hair all the way to her thighs?

He said again he didn’t know, but I could hear the blush in his voice as he sighed again and said he’d be back as soon as he could.

Well, it was a good half hour after he’d left that the car pulled up, and I had the door open to greet him, and he was holding the milk in one hand the keys in the other, and he looked kind of sheepish in that way he does when he’s feeling guilty about something.

You’ve been ages, I said, and he gave me this look that I hate and said he’d have been a lot sooner if he hadn’t stopped to call me back, so I said was he trying to blame me, and he said, no, not a bit, and had he missed any great drama in the twenty-seven minutes that he’d been gone?

I said there was no need for sarcasm, and it had all been fairly good here, thanks, despite wondering where he’d got to, and he set the milk on the table in the hall and turned on his heel, the keys still dangling from his hand, and I thought he’d forgotten something, like flowers, or a bar of chocolates, to make up for it, but then he was back in the car and pulling away, and I was standing on the doorstep with the knowledge I’d been right about him all along.