‘Um, Harri,’ her voice wobbles, and Harri winces. ‘Did you think I was twenty-six because I…I I I, um…’ the tears are shooting down her face now, and she’s addressing a decorative tree, ‘because I haven’t achieved enough? I’m nearly thirty and I haven’t, haven’t, haven’t…’ she sniffs, she presses her forearm against her face, and the sleeve of her jumper sparkles with tears and snot. It reminds Harri of a spider’s web, jewelled in dew. It would be quite beautiful if it wasn’t so revolting.

‘Oh, Louise, love, no! I didn’t…’ Louise holds her hand up to stop Harri, and continues. ‘Haven’t achieved anything worthwhile!’ Louise has lost all interest in trying to hold back her tears, she sobs, and sobs, and Imogen cradles her in her arms, murmuring ‘But you’ve achieved loads! You’re brilliant!’

Harri is too drunk to operate the heavy emotional machinery she needs to use in order to fix this. The cogs of her brain are rusting, squeaking, crumbling. Harri is trying to remember being twenty-nine, and whether that ever gave her cause to cry in an alpine theme bar. Twenty-nine is shrouded in the mists of time. Harri has a vague memory of doing maternity cover on a glossy Sunday supplement, being surrounded by braying posh girls and losing the will to live. She regards the braying posh girl in front of her with a stab of sympathy. Louise really, really cares. The Cressidas and Henriettas who used to drive her up the wall were mainly killing time, waiting for a Henry or a Hugo to give them permission to give up work and start a gift registry—sorry, family.

Tabitha says, with uncharacteristic sympathy, ‘The day after I turned thirty, I nearly had a breakdown, it hit me that I was never going to be on a “30 under 30” list. I spent the afternoon in bed, just—thinking my life was over.’

Harri is confused. ‘30 under 30 what? The business thing? I thought that was mostly entrepreneurs? Infant coders? Or Kardashian adjacent influencers who have used their inheritance to set up a multi-billion dollar lip gloss empire?’

At least this has distracted Louise from crying. ‘No, you know, media movers and shakers. Impressive people. I’m running out of time. Imogen, you’ll do it! Do it for all of us!’

Harri privately thinks Louise must definitely be in the country’s top percentile for histrionics. ‘Look, most people don’t do anything interesting before they’re thirty! You need to calm down.’

She’s got it wrong. Akila gives her a warning look. She knows what to say. ‘Louise, you’re really, really impressive, you’ve achieved loads, and I know you’re going to go on to even greater things. It’s not your fault, we all put ourselves under masses of pressure. When you work in media, it can feel like The Hunger Games out there.’