‘I can, actually,’ I said politely, passing her a cup, strangely reminded of Gwendolen and Cecily’s tea party in The Importance of Being Earnest. This was the version on acid.

‘I’m not sure about the jungle.’ She was genuinely worried. ‘All those horrid beasties. Snakes and things. Ugh!’

I ignored her. ‘But I don’t understand why Seb bothered to actually go out with me.’ I thought uncomfortably of everyone who’d said Fay and I looked alike. ‘To get at you, I guess?’

‘I don’t think it was that simple.’ Fay wrenched herself back from the jungle. ‘He blamed you for splitting us up, so it probably started out of revenge. After what you said on the show, you know.’ She added a dainty spoon of sugar to her tea.

‘What did I say?’ I racked my brain.

‘That being overprotective wasn’t necessarily right, that wanting to know where I was at every moment might just mean he liked control, not love. In a way, you know,’ Fay gave me that intense look I remembered from that first show, ‘he was right, you did split us up.’

‘Oh, great,’ I muttered. ‘So you blame me too?’ A moment on the lips, a lifetime running away from madmen you’d inadvertently offended.

‘No, no.’ She was quick to refute it. ‘I mean, I never would have left him if you hadn’t pointed out a few home truths. I wasn’t strong enough. But it was absolutely the best thing I ever did, splitting up with Troy.’ She reached out and grasped my hand in her little one. ‘I’m really grateful to you, Maggie, honestly.’

‘Oh,’ I said. I didn’t dare remove my hand. ‘You know, Fay, the funny thing is, for a while there I thought it was you out to get me.’

She looked aghast. ‘God, no.’ Her fingers slid off mine. ‘I just wanted to be your friend. It took me a while’, she looked down, ‘to realise you didn’t want to be mine.’

I felt a pang. ‘It wasn’t that simple, Fay. I – I’ve been in quite a bad place for a lot of this year. Dealing with a lot of trauma that I – I maybe haven’t handled very well.’

‘Shock’s a very hard thing to deal with,’ she said sagely. ‘That’s why I wanted you to join my Survivors’ group so badly.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe I should have done. At least I mightn’t have been alone so much.’ I thought about that first bunch of lilies arriving at my house, the same day she’d turned up. The fact I must have somehow shown I hated them on TV. He’d been watching hard. ‘How did Seb get my address? You know he sent me loads of funeral flowers?’