She looked up and was startled to see David hunched on the flight above her, his sleeves rolled to his elbows and another button on his shirt undone. He was clutching an empty pint glass – probably an emergency rehydration measure. ‘David? What are you doing here?’

‘I’m not a yoga person.’ He shook his head like a dog with something in its ear. ‘Can’t take my shoes and socks off in public.’

‘Not even for the sake of the Centre?’

‘I did a godawful retreat in Italy about five years ago. With free dancing. I made a promise to myself. Never again.’

‘Really?’ Tara was intrigued by the panic in his pale eyes. ‘What happened?’

‘We had to pretend we were going through the birthing process …’ David mimed being wedged in a confined space; Tara spluttered childishly at his panicked expression.

The kitchen door opened and someone walked in. ‘Tara? Tara?’

They both froze. It sounded like Emily.

David put a finger to his lips in a ‘Sshhh!’ gesture and pointed at the space next to him on the steps. Silently, Tara removed her shoes and tiptoed up to where David was sitting, one step at a time.

She heard someone else – Cressida? – yell, or rather slur, ‘Can you get me some water too, please? I’m feeling a bit …’ The tap ran, someone muttered, and the steps faded away.

Neither spoke for a moment, then just as Tara opened her mouth to say, ‘Do you think we should go back down?’ the unmistakeable sound of a gong began booming from the floor below and the pair of them cringed backwards into the metal steps.

‘Should we …?’ she said, as he said uncertainly, ‘They’re not going to miss us, are they? I mean, if they’re really into it?’

‘Better not interrupt them by coming in late,’ Tara agreed, refilling her glass. ‘Wine?’

‘Probably shouldn’t, but go on.’ David held his pint glass out with an urgency that suggested all the wine in the world couldn’t take away the mental image of what would be going on below them. ‘I’m feeling a bit strange, to be honest.’

‘Strange how?’

‘I don’t feel drunk …’

‘We established that earlier.’

‘But I’m definitely not sober.’ David seemed to be exploring the inside of his head. ‘I feel … drugged? I’ve never taken ketamine but this is what I imagine it’s like. Like I’m trapped inside a well. But in my head.’

‘That’s exactly how I feel!’ Tara pointed at him. ‘Is elderflower a hallucinogenic? I know nutmeg can get you stoned. Lionel’s wife once misread teaspoons for tablespoons in some biscuits he brought in one Christmas. The place looked like Woodstock by teatime.’

David giggled. Giggly drunk David was very different from the David who now met her at the corner of Shelley Street most mornings, to add pedometer steps and point out Edwardian postboxes.