Also new: Kate had tried not to look at Adam when he was talking, like she didn’t want to be caught out listening to him.

‘We went bowling last night and it was nice. We get on really well.’

‘Of course you do, you’ve always got on well.’ She feels her powerlessness.

They are meant to be a platonic group of friends, now. All the ‘trying each other on’, all the sleeping together and alliances made and broken, had taken place while they did their accountancy exams and broke out into the world of jobs, together. All that had taken place while Becky was still in the muggy sleepless haze of baby and toddler. By the time Adam had introduced Becky, the wild times had calmed into pub visits and dinners and the occasional weekend spent together. Their fondness for each other is familial and friendly – not special, not romantic. That’s the rule.

‘I guess I’m finding it confusing, these hanging-out things that sort of feel like dates but never turn into … dates. I mean, we left the bowling alley holding hands last night and I didn’t even know what it meant.’

‘Right.’

He shrugs. Her response is unhelpful. ‘Well I don’t know, I just need to talk to her about it, I suppose. What do you think?’

‘Why do you need to talk to her? Don’t you know what you want?’

She feels like her feet are trying to stay anchored to the ground as she controls a kite that wants to take flight without her.

Adam and Kate. Jules and Maisie. New relationships, growing up toward the sun, all green shoots, while all she feels is her own rotten roots diseasing everything and pulling her back.

‘You’ve got to know exactly what you want before you ask a woman a question like that.’ Her words sound accusatory now and the smile on Adam’s face struggles to beam as brightly. ‘You can’t just sound things out. Surely you know that? If you talk to her about this thing that you’re wondering about, that you think is between you, then you’re basically saying that you think about her as someone without her clothes on. You can’t ever undo that. It’s like if I told you I’d murdered someone in my past. You’d never, ever be able to forget that about me.’

‘I don’t know about that. I’d forgive you anything.’

Would he?

He squints at her. ‘Becks?’

‘What?’

‘Have you murdered someone?’

‘Not yet.’

His grin widens. ‘I just feel like you’re trying to steer the conversation around to telling me you’ve murdered someone.’

‘You’ll be the first to know when it happens.’

‘Is that because I’ll be the person it’s happening to?’

‘Most likely.’

‘So you don’t think I should talk to her?’