Siobhan had answered after two rings. ‘All right?’ she said, a response so unexpected that Becky was silenced. ‘Beck, are you there?’

And then the words had poured out. ‘I’m calling because it matters to me what you think. And I want you to know that of all the bad things I’ve done in the last year, the thing I most regret was hurting you. I can’t take that back and I’m not asking you to forgive me, but I want to tell you that when things started happening with Matthew and Amber, I made some really bad decisions. I was afraid of what might happen and what I might lose. I didn’t want my life destroyed by something I hadn’t done. But that was wrong. I should have been braver than that. And I’m so sorry I took it out on you.’

Enough silence had fallen for Becky to think Siobhan had ended the call until she heard her say, ‘Bit heavy for eight a.m. on a Tuesday?’

Becky had laughed, sniffing back tears.

‘Seriously,’ said Siobhan. ‘I’m feeling sorry for you right now. Some of the stuff they’re saying about you … especially as I know you loved your work and you worked hard. And you did come forward, in the end.’ Becky felt tears on her cheeks and she was glad Siobhan couldn’t see them.

Becky wanted to tell her more: to drape and underpin and contextualize everything with the details of her own story, to do as Matthew and Adam had, garlanding their actions with good reasons, solid explanations, great excuses, and a bulletproof sense that they ought never to be judged for any pain they had caused. And yet, with Siobhan, she tried to let her apology stand unreserved.

‘I’m making my film, Becks,’ said Siobhan. ‘You know the one where, like, if Watership Down was actually a laugh? I honestly think I might get Aniston. Like, comedy Aniston. The best Aniston.’

‘I’m pleased for you,’ she said, believing it too.

The industry had felt like another country then. Its vanities, its ways, its hungers – they had dropped away. On the surface, at least. And Becky had left that behind. So when Siobhan asked her what her next move was going to be, and the reply was that she had been taking long walks, Becky had to work to convince her ex-colleague that this was actually true.

‘But you were doing so well!’ said Siobhan.

Then Amber’s face, drunk or drugged, out of it and miserable, trapped, on its side against Matthew’s rug, stared back at Becky.

‘No, I wasn’t,’ she replied. ‘Not the way I should have been.’