The small sideways shove from her brother had been all that it took for her to stumble off the frightening course, away from the bad things. Sally exhaled and lay with the phone in front of her face, tapping back a reply to James like a sixth-former flirting in her bedroom. The fear had gone, and she thought about the wedding venue – only ten miles from here – with its magnificent oak library and portraits of old men hunting; how proud she would be when everyone walked in, kissing her cheek, saying what a great day it had been. She thought about the speeches, the tribute to Dad she had already sketched out, and imagined looking at James as she said it: James sitting next to her on the top table.

*

That was not how things had been, of course. The gap between her vision of the wedding day and the reality was something she had never forgiven James for. But it was in the past, and she’d let it pollute the present. Sal looked down at the river sparkling in the sun. A horse and cart went by, tourists messing about; a grey horse and a black one, heads bowed in resignation, the driver in a red waistcoat cajoling them forwards, the passengers taking selfies in the carriage. She thought about how easily life could become nothing. You could hoist yourself up onto the handrail and fall into the water and, in moments, everything in your brain – all you’d ever struggled towards, loved, feared – would be wiped like code. Her heart tightened in her chest as she thought about James, miserable, vulnerable, about to make a mistake he could never undo. Would he think of her in the minutes beforehand? Why had she left him like this?

Come on. We’re going to listen to our breathing. We’re going to think of the next steps. James needed her. She had to be his protector.

She looked at the phone. The Facebook discussion was moving on. Someone was talking about Twitter. People were helping, they were engaged, even though it must be the middle of the night back home. People were sorting her brother out. Their voices were there, high notes above the aviary chatter that never ended: Dec talking about what he’d like to do to her ‘sweaty bod’ after the speech tonight (he was out of luck; she was 100 per cent getting in the shower for forty-five minutes), Bridget expressing her ongoing excitement about the Lorne weekend with a total of nineteen GIFs taken from the movie Despicable Me.

Sal would wade in. She was the cavalry; solving problems was what she did. She would get in touch with this Steffi, introduce herself. Start getting the word around.

Ways we could get help for him:

1. See list below.

2. Circulate Facebook message as far and wide as possible.

3. Get clients with celeb contacts involved, call in favours.