He and his sister Amanda had inherited quite a lot when his parents died. I didn’t know how much, just that they were reasonably wealthy, and that when they’d gone to live with their grandparents, it had all been kept in trust. Which was why, it transpired, Michael was able to live so well and be a theatre critic, not, as his lifestyle might suggest, an investment banker or something. Even if he wasn’t a raging success, it certainly looked as if he was, as he himself would admit. ‘Important to look the part, even if it is only a part,’ he’d quip, which I liked. Although, as a pissed friend of his pointed out one night, Michael was always quick to tell a joke about himself before someone else did.

Anyway, I did move in, or flounce out. Helena and I had had another blazing row. This time it was about Michael’s sister, whom Helena had met at a party. Having realized the connection, she’d then had a frank-and-fearless with her about the death of her parents, as only Helena could. Amanda had told her how, in a hotel bedroom in Greece, they’d both died in their sleep of carbon monoxide poisoning. And how this tragedy had left Amanda not only bereft, but traumatized. How, as a result, she’d never been able to make any real connection in a relationship. How, as soon as it got serious, she broke it off. For fear of getting hurt. For fear of abandonment later.