I paused the video and turned to look at her. She was standing at the table, her hair held back in the Alice band she'd got for her snobby job, and a pair of shorts I had a vague idea I was meant to notice. I didn't answer her straight off. Her voice was kind of casual, but both of us knew how serious she was. I'd 'given up' smoking months ago and I reckoned I'd hidden the occasional sneaky rollie pretty well. Except now there was the lighter.

I watched while she zipped up the rucksack.

'It was in your jacket pocket,' she said, reading my mind.

'I got it for the stove. There's no pilot.'

'Yeah,' she said, laughing. 'You're so transparent.'

I laughed too. Just a bit. 'Transparent or not — I used it for the stove.'

'OK,' she said lightly. 'OK. I believe you. You're so believable.' She set her tongue at the back of her front teeth and smiled up at the ceiling. Her smiling made the sinews in her neck stand out. She'd got skinny recently. I waited a few more moments to see if we were going to pursue this. Not dropping the smile or taking her eyes off the ceiling, in that same high voice she goes: 'And there was tobacco in the shorts you had on yesterday.'

'You're going through my pockets now?'

'Yes. My husband lies to me about smoking so I go through his pockets.' She dropped her chin then and met my eyes and I saw she'd flushed a deep purplish colour — like her cheeks were bruised. 'My husband thinks I'm stupid. So I have to fight back.'

The most important thing about me and my marriage was I didn't fancy my wife any more. I'd known it for months and done nothing about it — it's one of those things you can stick in the back of your mind and ignore if you're clever enough. But, and this is true, I cared about her. Weird fuck I was, I did still care for her. And I cared, in some rusty old-fashioned way, about fidelity. Back in London half my friends were already blasting their way through first, second divorces: I was the sanctimonious one, believed in thick and thin, wasn't going to end up in a frigid, three-minute-egg of a marriage. Touche, Joe Oakes, you pious arse. This'll teach you.