If something’s not right, it’s wrong, Phillip had said, with just enough forward tilt of the glasses to convey that this was a quotation (Google helped her out on the way home). He’d said it, like everything on that stolen meeting, with a show of neutrality. It was only weeks later he’d admitted: ‘What I meant by that was, I want to make love to you more than anything in life.’ It was even a surprise when she found an excuse to meet him in Paris; she felt as if she was merely submitting to a long-held plan as she straddled him in a toilet cubicle at the gallery where he was meant to be having meetings, because neither of them could wait till they got back to the hotel. As they walked out of the Ladies’ together, an old woman with a complex assembly of necklaces gave them a strange look. ‘This facility is now gender-neutral,’ said Phillip, in French. ‘Since when?’ she asked. ‘Now,’ he deadpanned.

If something wasn’t right, it was wrong, and something obviously wasn’t right, or it would never have happened this way with Phillip. He was the answer to a question she hadn’t been courageous enough to ask. And once that solution was in her grasp, she had to commit to it, she had to walk away from everything and begin a new life, because that was how she did things. She’d never regretted it, really. Felt guilty, yes, but not regretted it. Now, in the bath, she felt a shudder pass right through her and she reached for James’s number again.

The person you are calling …

‘Are you ever going to come to bed or do you just plan staying in the bath all night like some sort of John and Yoko thing?’

She let Phillip’s barb die on the air. Why encourage him? Just at this moment she didn’t need his sarcasm, thank you. Yes, she was sure it was strange to be doing this at gone five in the morning. Desperately messaging her ex’s friends, contacts, anyone. But what did he care? They had nothing to get up for tomorrow. They were just going to go out and have brunch. And maybe see this Spanish movie by some female director who Phillip said would be regarded as a genius if it wasn’t for what he called ‘the intrinsic sexism of the arts’. (Michaela had looked up ‘intrinsic’ out on the fire escape.)