My ex-husband invited the former wife he believed was still childless and miserable to his family’s Christmas at their military estate. He never imagined I would arrive on a government tactical helicopter — with four eight-year-olds who had his face.

The slightly crooked smile.

And the dimple that only comes up on one side when they laugh — which is his, exactly, down to the side it is on, and which I found charming for about four years in a previous life.

There was never going to be any explaining that away. Not by anybody, in any room, at any distance.

The Vail place came up below us at about half past nine.

Snow across the whole of it. Decorations across a frontage about a hundred and forty feet wide, done properly, by somebody paid to do it.

Four rows of expensive cars down a drive, and a marquee at the side for the catering.

We put down on the pad they keep for the general’s old aircraft — which has not been used since 2016 and which somebody still clears the snow off.

About two hundred yards from the front of that house.