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‘And how would that look? Tongues would wag and I’m sure Elva would hear about it all the way back in Hampshire.’

‘You’re hateful,’ she replied, stomping to the bathroom. ‘You’ve ruined the night. You’ve ruined everything.’

He gulped, shock combining with sorrow at this glimpse into their future. He remembered now how he’d laughed, but it had been a sound with no mirth. ‘What a good start to married life.’

He had slept on the floor. Although in the morning he was remorseful, wanting to appease her, the tone had been set for their colourless marriage. He never gave her the perfume he’d bought, unable to fully forgive her for that row. And then he’d put the gift away in his old RAF trunk, stored in the dark of their attic. The years had made him see that to her the forgotten toiletries were not trivial and he regretted his stubbornness. But a happy wife meant a quieter life for him. Now, they rarely argued, but that was because they barely spoke to each other about anything important.

He blinked, shaking himself out of his reverie. What had begun this deep self-examination?

It was the perfume! He’d found it that morning while looking for some notes he’d made in an old exercise book. He’d turned the house upside down looking for it, and then climbed the ladder into the loft to poke around in every old suitcase or shoebox in the hope of finding it. He’d finally found the book in the RAF trunk, of all places. And there he saw the perfume he’d purchased so many years ago. He couldn’t help himself. He took off the lid that he was sure was meant to remind one of a pepper shaker. He recalled the elegant woman vividly and how much he’d enjoyed the experience of the purchase; it had been a pity his wife had never worn it, but then it would never have suited her, he now realised.

He’d sniffed.

It was dazzling, but also complex and dark. For some inexplicable reason, as the first note of pepper hit his senses, it was Valentina Camilleri who flashed into his mind. How very odd. He hadn’t thought of that amusing, brightly intelligent child in so many years, and yet that fragrance had hit his thoughts like a summery day at the Barrakka Gardens or the cool of the cathedral’s oratory, when he’d told her about Caravaggio.

He’d dabbed the underside of the lid onto his hand to smell it better and realised now that as the ephemeral burst of Etourdissant had dissipated, a spiralling waft of floral and spice began to unfurl around him. Layers of fragrance, he realised, could be cold and could be warm… could be light and could be dark. Here was Caravaggio again, he thought, smiling at the notion. He liked the scent every bit as much as he had when he’d first smelled it and it had made him think of Malta.

Was that because of Caravaggio?

Perhaps. And perhaps it was because of how free he’d felt in Valletta – free to follow his own whims, his interests, and to share them with the girl who’d matched his love for the world of art.

Malta and Caravaggio were wrapped up together with Valentina in this scent now, that brilliant youngster who was the next generation that they’d all been fighting for, hoping to protect, along with their way of life, their cultures, their hopes and dreams. The poor thing had had so much ambition and so little chance of fulfilling any of it, and still she studied and pushed herself.

He’d wondered where she was now. What had become of her and that marriage she feared? Was she a mother now? Had she somehow found a way to keep her promise to become a scholar of Caravaggio? He doubted it, and still he wished it was so.

Without warning, his thoughts had carried him away from the soothing loft of his childhood to his time as a Spitfire ace in the Mediterranean. He was seated on the warm stone steps outside the cathedral in Valletta next to a gangly fifteen-year-old – nearly sixteen-year-old, he corrected himself with a nostalgic smile, recalling her stormy gaze, angry at her parents, angry at him… angry at life.

Suddenly he felt galvanised.

He knew exactly what needed to be done to dig himself and Delia out of this hole they were wallowing in.

It was time to talk. Really talk.

They talked plenty, but about nothing meaningful. She revelled in conversation about the various committees she chaired, or some titbit of gossip she’d heard. None of it interested him, and he’d tried, really he had. If he praised her appearance, cooking or gardening, he could anticipate some kind words of affection in return, but it always felt contrived. The areas of conversation that felt safe were the weather, social events and news of Bath and further abroad; Delia liked to be fully versed in the latest happenings around the globe, even political matters, and he was a news obsessive, with the wireless permanently muttering in the background. But she found his art world boring; his part in it especially, which was a shame because in the almost fifteen years of their marriage, he had carved a path for himself that now meant he had a very senior role, with so much more to look forward to in his career.

These days he worked at the Courtauld Institute, which had come into being from the vision of a trio of art collectors with a common desire to improve understanding of the visual arts in Britain. It promoted the academic study of art at university and the notion that art was not just the pastime of the rich. Its aim was to provide training for professionals who wanted to enter the world of art, whether in study, teaching or business. Postwar, its move to appoint Anthony Blunt, an avowed Marxist but also a rising star in the art-history world, as the director was a daring one. He was modern thinking, a journalist, on the young side but full of ideas. It was Blunt who had appointed Peter a year after his own position was formalised. It was quite something for Peter to take on the role, so geared to research and academic excellence.

If only she might show some interest in his work.

If only he might show some interest in her annual fete.

What a wretched couple they were, shaped by trauma and seemingly incapable of comforting one another.

When it came to intimacy, there was little of it between them. They’d become rather cool characters in marriage, which he found baffling because he believed each of them possessed generally warm personalities, at least when it came to other relationships in their lives.

‘Gah!’ he said out loud, hating all this introspection. But that’s what he’d become, so internalised. He kept his thoughts to himself, while whatever came out of his mouth felt shallow and unimportant. He hadn’t even bothered to ask whether she was indeed having an affair, although he’d suspected it for years. Even to him his reticence was appalling. Why couldn’t they just sit down and thrash it out, even if that meant deciding they were useless for each other? But Delia would never get to sitting down. She had a radar for that sort of threat and would find any excuse to avoid an emotional confrontation. She was perfectly capable of taking him to task over why he’d said such and such at dinner, or why he always begged off visiting her family or happened to need to be in London that weekend? But if she got the slightest whiff of a more meaningful conversation about the state of their marriage, she’d duck, weave and disappear.

His friend had been right. Delia probably was a good stick, depending on how you viewed life. If you wanted to be married yet independent, mostly left alone but still outwardly social, the fabulous couple on everyone’s guest list, and if you wanted to have affairs as well, then their marriage was perfect.

But what if you wanted love? Love of the thunderstruck kind. Love that moved you to tears, to achieve impossible feats. Love that was addictive, that meant you couldn’t bear to be out of that person’s company.

What if you wanted to amuse your soulmate with a witty comment just to watch her throw her head back with laughter, and have her do the same?

What if you wanted your conversations over dinner to cover everything from art, music and books to memories of childhood and your dreams for the future?

What if you wanted the security of knowing you were loved, desired, needed? What if you couldn’t imagine breathing without that person breathing next to you?

Well, the Fox marriage couldn’t withstand that sort of scrutiny. It offered neither of them any of those things. They were separate people with separate interests who were pulling in opposite directions but helplessly bound through a marriage contract.