‘I’m not crying.’ The voice was fuzzy, reminding Sal of her own twelve-year-old self when she got a freak bad score in Biology, 34 per cent, read out in front of the bitchy girls. ‘I’m fine.’

Sally shut her eyes. This day was too much. Everything was too much. ‘Meghan. Hey. I went too – that was – I’ve been coping quite badly with the – James is …’

‘The thing is, I know I fucked up by mentioning him. In the interview, when the guy was there.’ Meghan was breathing hard; her voice was thick with misery, and Sal felt ashamed. ‘But then also it feels like I fucked up by not saying anything about it from then on, so, you need to help me here. I mean – sorry. You don’t have to help me. You’re the boss. I just feel like I don’t know … I’ve got a dress for the dinner, but I can just take it back?’

‘What do you … what?’ Sal felt as if she was sinking through the seat.

‘I guess that you don’t want me to come to the dinner, now, which is all good: I can tidy up my place, I guess.’ Sal pictured Meghan, deliberating over the dress purchase, coming into work today with the outfit carefully folded and still in its shopping bag. She cringed at the image.

‘This is a conversation we can … I’ll be back soon,’ said Sal. ‘But of course I want you to come, love … Meghan.’

‘Really?’

The wish for approval in her voice chimed with what Sal had heard from her own mother an hour before, and Sal was hit by a terrible sense of who she was these days, who she had become. Someone who has cut off their brother. What had she done? The conversation at the next get-together, six weeks later, after the honeymoon and before the return to Australia: Sal chock-full of self-righteousness, relishing the combat, her own eloquence in his miserable, tongue-tied face. ‘It’s not the point that you got there for the evening. It’s the fact you missed a defining moment in my life because you’d rather be in a sports hall.’

‘I wouldn’t have rather … I would of course have rather been …’ James had been floundering, in the doorway of the restaurant; getting in people’s way. ‘I mean, I wanted to get there even earlier than that – to talk to Dad …’

‘Right, the wedding wasn’t even your main plan for the day.’

‘You’re being – this is rather harsh, Sally,’ said James, looking at his hands.

‘I’d almost respect it more if you had the fucking backbone to argue properly,’ she muttered, walking away.