Titch chairs many meetings. She knows that ideas take hold in subtle ways. A good manager is a gardener of people. You allow a shoot to grow in a warm greenhouse, then transplant it to the outside world. You feed. You support. Sometimes you force, or you prune. What you never have is an equal marketplace of ideas. There is always a preconception, a personal animosity, a sense of vulnerability or unease that blocks one path and opens another.

After the initial excitement, the thing that has surprised her about Rose is how little friction there has been so far. For someone so unfamiliar with the world she finds herself in, she rarely puts a foot wrong. She seems to move with a blank ease, accepting how things are, and allowing people to read into her what they will. She is lovely. Sweet, as Archie says. Her naïvety is almost overplayed, were it not so convincing.

‘So she’s happy?’

‘Of course she’s bloody happy!’

‘Yes,’ Titch says. ‘Of course. She’s overcome so many things.’

Archie nods seriously. He takes a sip of wine.

‘You can’t imagine,’ he says.

Titch raises an eyebrow. She wonders what Rose tells Archie, whether she actually says the things that must have happened to her. She’s always wanted to ask Paula for the details, but she knows it would be crass.

‘Apparently her mother once shut her head in a door,’ says Archie.

Titch raises a hand to her face in shock. The noise of the restaurant sharpens in her ears.

‘Oh my god,’ she says.

‘Just awful,’ Archie says, vaguely. ‘Makes it all the more amazing what’s happened.’

Shut in the door, thinks Titch. She feels sick. Her hand is back at her mouth again to catch a stifled half-giggle.

‘Oh my god,’ she says, ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s pretty extreme,’ Archie says, with a smile.

‘I’m not laughing,’ says Titch. Another hiccupped giggle. She feels a glow of shame. But also shock and pride and disquiet at her own excitement. ‘Oh my god, I feel terrible,’ she says.

Archie’s smooth face droops with sincerity. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘It’s fucking awful.’ He squeezes her hand. ‘But let’s remember this story has a happy end.’

Titch smiles back at him, even though she feels suddenly tearful. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

Yes, it was a good thing. ‘Yes,’ she says.

Beyond Archie’s shoulder, a woman and the man she’s had her dinner with leave their table. Charming smiles as they dance out from behind their chairs. Titch watches the delicate manoeuvre unfold, the hand held out to the lower arm, the lean into a gentle peck on the cheek.

‘Yes,’ she says, one more time, her voice fading.

She remembers again the touch of Rose’s fingers. The breach of it. All the ways we interact, the rules and expectations, all predicated on the fact that other people are just like us. Rose had torn a little hole in that. She wasn’t like Titch had been. Not ever.