Chapter Six – A heart full of love, a foot covered in scurf: As the season progressed and the summer inched ever closer, she could feel the mystery gradually return to their relationship. It was in no small part thanks to a domestic cricket schedule that kept him from getting under her feet for all bar one or two nights a week.

For every cricket widow understands there is truth behind the saying absence makes the heart grow fonder; and with her the yearning for his return only intensified with knowledge that the ever lengthening evenings saw him dashing from one end of the country to another; twilight illuminating a cocoon of loneliness that was punctured only by the sound of junior pros at the back of the coach trying to emulate his ability to belch over a three octave range.

Her longing deepened with late night phone calls from distant Travelodges. Shared confidences where he‘d keep her up to date on club gossip and whisper sweet nothings down the line about how she’d forgotten to pack his medicated foot cream – their time together had taught her to read between the lines of what a man said whilst he was room sharing on tour, so she was well versed in the hymns of love he was actually singing to her whilst outwardly appearing to describe the flaky deposits between his toes. That was the coded language of love that exists between a couple in true harmony, as well as the coded language of love that had mistakenly convinced him he was the object of affection for their elderly family dermatologist, Dr Patel.

Their reunions were joyful. Martin and his wife I mean, not Martin and Dr Patel, those mostly involved a stiff handshake and a shared recounting of recent holidays.

So different from the urgent embrace when he once again crossed the threshold of the marital home, once again fell into the comforting arms of her love, once again repeated the words of passion she’d missed during the long lonely nights he’d been away from her.

“Is that my prescription on the kitchen table? Keep your engines ticking over by yourself for a while; I’ll be back as soon as I’ve worked the cream into my dermatitis.”