To me, novels had ceased to seem like any sort of guide, at least not on relationships. I had arrived at the view that no one told the truth about love, that as a culture we peddled an assortment of wrong ideas. I had no idea how much it was reasonable to expect – how much any relationship, once it had been worn in, could deliver on the cliché of a romantic state.

Elise looked at her watch. ‘Don’t you have to go? It’s almost six o’clock.’

I did. I was having dinner with Sylvie, and Sylvie being Sylvie we had agreed on an early time. I hurried to Darlinghurst and the cafe she’d chosen. She showed up walking her gliding walk, and we sat facing the street to eat the house spaghetti. She was in high spirits, and when she spoke about Charles and his offer to take her flying, she shuddered with pleasure. ‘I’d be afraid of falling out,’ she said. ‘The whole thing is ridiculous.’

She was silent for a moment, gazing at the pedestrians. ‘But what do I have to lose?’ she asked. ‘Do I want to make other people’s lunches into my old age? Although, you know, Rowan, I worry. What if it’s how it was with Erik? What if he wants a nurse?’

She had looked into it anyway, had seen her travel agent. She had a quote on a ticket from Sydney to Paris with a stopover in Ho Chi Minh City. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘if I’d been a man, I would have had to go off to fight in Vietnam. They had that lottery for conscription. My birthday came up.’

She told me Charles had fought in Algeria, before she knew him. On night watch, he had been made to sit holding a grenade with the pin pulled out. If he’d fallen asleep and dropped it, it would have killed him. It was a form of torture, she said, shaking her head. She was sure it had played a part in his problems later on.

For a moment, she looked quite aged. Her eyeliner was smudged, her skin crepey under her tan. But her smile was valiant, her eyes peculiarly bright. She downed a glass of water, the lovely tap water. Changing the topic, she asked how I’d been. ‘You’re doing well, though, aren’t you, Rowan?’ She peered into my face.

‘I’m doing great,’ I said.

She was too preoccupied to dig further. Yet there was something I had been wanting to ask her. Feeling certain of nothing, and with no trustworthy guides, I wanted the opinion of a realist. As we were leaving I came out with it on the street, asking if she thought I should go on with Dave.

‘Is he good to you?’ she asked, frowning with sudden concentration.

‘Yes.’

‘How is the sex?’

I was surprised. ‘The sex is good.’

‘Good,’ she said. She flagged a taxi. ‘You’re fine. Stick with him, Rowan.’ And with these words of wisdom she stepped into the cab.