Okay? Luca mouthed, reaching across to squeeze her hand.

Pax nodded, her hand now feeling as though it had been massaged in Deep Heat. She’d picked up a leaflet from her chair which she flipped through now, half-listening as the man in the creased suit moved on through cooking sherry and Advocaat to ‘a bottle of perry cider somebody brought to a barbecue about three summers ago which reminded me that I had friends once. I’ve driven them all away through my alcohol dependence.’ Pax looked up as he caught a sob and a caring-looking man in a Fair Isle tank top – who, she realised, must be the group leader – asked him to tell everyone how he felt about that. He still had his office swipe card on a lanyard around his neck and for some reason it made her want to run away, this reminder of the lab-rat lives outside this room which drove them all to unscrew the tops of vodka bottles. That wasn’t a tribe she could sit easily amongst.

‘It makes me even more grateful to have God in my life,’ Perry Cider man said.

Pax deliberately didn’t look at Luca. The leaflet in her hands reminded her why she’d always worried that this would not be for her. The recovery message was positive, supportive and self-affirming, but there was no denying the evangelical sway of it all. From ten commandments to twelve steps was just a hop.

Flicking a page, she could almost hear ‘hallelujah!’ with descant, strings and cassocks.

She glanced across at Luca again. He was reading his leaflet too, forehead creased just as doubtfully. Catching her looking at him, he gave her the ghost of a wink.

Too much from the all-new, clean-shaven, drop-dead-gorgeous Luca. She looked away, pink-cheeked. He believes in God she reminded herself. This works for him. My devilish thoughts have no place here.

She was starting to feel the familiar tight-chested panic of needing to be somewhere else. Urgently.

Perry Cider man had fallen silent and Pax joined in the muted applause, wondering if she could stick it out, especially when Fair Isle man asked if anybody else wanted to share their stories? He seemed to be looking straight at her. ‘I think you’re ready, am I right?’

She shrank lower.

But it was the blonde woman sitting immediately in front of them who spoke, and as soon as she did, Pax knew why her ears had looked familiar.

‘My name is Monique and I am an alcoholic, okay. This is my story.’ She looked around with her bulging, ice-blue eyes.

Pax put a hand up to shield her face, looking to Luca in a panic mouthing Bay’s wife!

He pulled an uncomprehending face.

Monique’s voice – Dutch accent ironic and monotone, accustomed to shouting across arenas – echoed around the room with a jeroboam more self-belief than Perry Cider man. ‘So I’m married to a man who can’t keep his dick in his pants, okay. He has many affairs. We both do. It’s nothing new. He liked it that I am bisexual when we married, now he is less happy because my lovers are both boys.’ She laughed ironically.