‘Do you remember when Jack was four?’ Beth asks him. ‘He found my lipstick and painted his lips bright red.’

Sure, he remembers. He remembers the lipstick too. A flamboyant red, too harsh for her skin tone, too loud for her nature.

‘Yeah, well… boys will be boys,’ he says.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just that you shouldn’t read anything into it.’

She slides off the lid of a silver tube, rolls up a glossy burgundy stick, and sighs, ‘You think?’

He stares at the lipstick. The colour is beautiful, it suits her. Like a wine stain at the end of some decadent dinner. And he imagines the pucker of his son’s lips as a tannin tang catches him off guard and makes him smile.