This narrative I’ve woven for myself which, like everything else in my life, has me at the epicentre, is, I now realise, completely unreliable. All this time, Marlowe has existed as some kind of side character, there to humour and entertain and service me, and this entire time she’s been dealing with the kind of shit I’ve never encountered in my cushy, entitled life.

‘She was exhausted,’ I whisper. ‘I remember. Fucking hell.’

I remember far too much about that hour in that bed with her. I remember the feelings that lying there with her elicited. The feelings that prompted me to freak out and behave like a callous, disrespectful twat.

That ends now.

‘It’s going to be different now,’ I promise Athena. ‘Now I know the score, I’ll look after her.’

She puts down her fork and lays her elbows on the table between us, glaring at me with her signature ferocity.

‘Let me be very clear. If you think what’s happening here is that you’ll swan in and save the day, then you’re wrong. Marlowe’s not a victim. She’s stronger than any of us. This is about you having the privilege of seeing her clearly for the first time, and fully appreciating what makes her so special, and then supporting her. It’s about her and Tabs. She’s been rescuing herself and her daughter for the past eight years without much help from anyone, so she doesn’t need you swooping in like Superman now. Got it?’

Yeah.

For what feels like the first time since I laid eyes on this beautiful woman at the RA, I finally get it.

Jesus, hospitals give me the heebie-jeebies. Like most unpleasantness in the real world, my family’s money has insulated me from this sort of stuff. I’m happy to keep things that way, even if I know deep down that money doesn’t guarantee good health. Far from it.

But I could really do without being reminded up close of the existence of a world where people are ill and suffering. Where kids are ill and suffering.

As Athena and I walk along the bright corridor, it occurs to me that this is an integral part of Marlowe’s life. Hospitals and valves and oxygen levels and God knows what else are all part of her existence, her vernacular. They’re second nature to her. Unlike yours truly, she doesn’t have the option of burying her head in the sand and pretending these parts of society don’t exist.