‘He asked a lot of very well-informed questions about domestic abuse and were we dealing with women who walked in after being abused? If they called us did we send the cops to their homes? And how did I handle a woman who, say, had been beaten by her husband but still went back to him? I answered all his questions – and he turned to his assistant and said that he would like to invite me to lunch and learn more … “as I think you are exactly the sort of young articulate spokeswoman for the shelter that we need”. I actually handed him my card – we all have them at the shelter to give to the women we take in – and said that I’d be happy to have lunch if he’d also invite my boss Helen along. I nodded in her direction. Helen’s about fifty and rather severe. Kelleher put my card in his pocket and said: “We’ll be in touch.” Which struck me as also his way of saying: “If you won’t eat lunch with me alone … goodbye.” That was that. Never heard from him again – which was a relief. Because had he asked me to lunch I would have probably felt obliged to go through with it for the good of the shelter.

‘Anyway, five days ago Rachel came in and called a staff meeting and announced that the board of our shelter met yesterday with Kelleher’s people … and Kelleher wants to make an initial $2 million annual donation … with the hope of trying to open another three or four of our shelters in LA within two years and starting to think about maybe opening an entire chain across the state.’

‘So your job is now safe!’ I said, raising my beer bottle to Klara.

‘It looks that way,’ she said, lighting up a fresh cigarette.

‘Your enthusiasm isn’t exactly overwhelming.’

‘Patrick Kelleher was accused of assault by his wife; a wife whose career he ruined after she left him.’

‘I think her career got ruined by the nude pictures of her with her lover boy when she was still married to Kelleher. And then having an abortion …’

‘That was her legal right to do so.’

‘I’m not disagreeing with you on that one – but the fact that she didn’t consult her husband …’

‘Why did she have to do that?’

‘She never said it wasn’t his child.’