I took my seat—the second worst one in the circle. That was the bad thing about being late to group, all the comfortable chairs were gone. I’d have to endure at least two hours in this low-backed upright thing with the wonky leg—and do it without demonstrating discomfort. Any display of vulnerability would erode my power.

My little flock of ducklings was quiet now, flicking looks at the last empty place—where Simon would have sat—waiting for me to speak. But their response to this upheaval was information for me, so I assumed my blandest face and prepared to wait it out.

Would today be the day that FedEx delivered my new sneakers, I found myself wondering. I’d only ordered them yesterday but sometimes they arrived the next day. Usually, though, it took two days. Occasionally, three. (That was hard. I’d be all geared up, my head generating pre-dopamine and then the cupboard would be bare…)

‘Someone say something,’ Dennis pleaded. ‘I’m sweating like a pig from the silence!’

Right, back to work! Dennis, an alcoholic who had arrived yesterday, was still locked tight in the fiction that there was nothing wrong with him. Apparently, he was only here to ‘shut up the wife’. Today—just like yesterday—he wore a wrinkled suit with soup stains on the trousers. His tie was askew, two buttons were missing from his shirt and his straining belly overhung his belt. A local councillor in the town he hailed from—one of those close-knit places in the middle of nowhere—I found him impossible to dislike.

‘What’s wrong with silence, Dennis?’ My voice was cool but the rocky chair leg, tilting me forwards, then backwards, as I spoke, definitely undermined me.

‘’ Tis too quiet.’

Couldn’t argue with that.

‘Can I ask a question?’ Harlie’s voice shook. ‘Has Simon been kicked out?’

When he wasn’t romancing Prissie behind the couch in the rec room, Simon had flirted outrageously with Harlie. She’d sparkled beneath his sketchy charms and they were shaping up to be a situation. Maybe it was as well he was gone.

‘Simon has left,’ I said.

Distraught, she crumpled into herself. Giles, another smoothie with an eye for the ladies, shifted uncomfortably, perhaps wondering if he was next to be ejected. Working-class hero Chalkie twitched, primed to sniff out a miscarriage of justice. Roxy, leaving in a week, frowned with concern. Dennis watched the others for hints on how to react. And Trassa exclaimed, ‘You fancy him!’

‘And what if I do!’ Dennis was unable, as always, to resist making a joke.

‘Not you,’ Trassa said. ‘Harlie.’

‘I don’t!’

She did, though. I’d keep an extra eye on her over the next few days.

‘So Simon’s gone, gone?’ Chalkie asked. ‘Just thrown out on his ear? No chance to say goodbye.’