I rang off, loving the way she took my presence here for granted. My need for regular updates. She’d already been leaps and bounds ahead of me at that Sunday lunch, I just hadn’t dared to go there. And now it appeared Josh hadn’t dared either. Hadn’t dared to be vulnerable. Neither of us had, in case we got – you know. Hurt. More hurt. Which neither of us needed. So I’d gone briefly for the safe option. I shut my eyes. Dan. I knew I’d led him up the garden path, but in a way, I hadn’t. I just hadn’t been brave enough to say no. To go for the other path. Hadn’t been bold enough to text Josh and say – ‘You’ve gone a bit quiet, what’s up?’ Like the young would. Imo. Helena, back in the day. I hadn’t wanted to be rebuffed. I knew I had to go and see Dan, explain, and I knew that would be hard, for both of us. Most of all, for him. But at least I was doing it now, and not in three or six months’ time, when I was feeling stronger, less unstable, and when I knew I’d got it wrong. Or I might have been in too deep and unable to: might even have been living with him at my parents’ house. With them in the bungalow. A cosy little set-up.

It gave me a sudden jolt of horror, that vision. Because I knew I’d be back on my feet soon, now that the bogeyman had gone. I knew that my nightmare of a life was receding, like an ever-decreasing tide, away into the distance, and that I wouldn’t need him. Thanks to Ingrid. Thanks to that remarkable woman in the house behind. And I’d never say a word about what she’d done. Not even to Josh. I’d take it to my grave. I’d made her a solemn promise, and I’d keep it. And I would forever be astounded, humbled and grateful to her. Hope that one day, I could do the same for someone else, another woman like us. I adjusted my position on the stairs and adjusted my mind back too, to Dan. Back to what could have been. It would have been very wrong to be with a man I liked very much but didn’t love, and whose protection I didn’t need any more.