‘No no, it’s not that – they’re terrific, thank you – it’s just – Sophie, you look so grown up!’ She pulled Sophie into her huge chest and held her there until her daughter began to protest.

‘I think we should go with one of these three,’ said Callum. ‘If you give me your email I’ll ping them over to you now, and then you can let me know when you’ve decided on one.’

* * *

It was 9 p.m. by the time Callum got back to Brewer’s Court. When he first entered the flat, he assumed that Leah must have had friends over, and then gone out: there were no lights on anywhere, but he could see, in the streetlight, two bottles of white wine glinting on the coffee table. One was empty, the other about three-quarters full. He switched on the lights and was about to go through to the little kitchen area to make himself something to eat when a noise like a very long cough made him pause. He listened hard and heard the same strange noise again, even longer this time. It was coming from somewhere in the flat.

He found Leah in the bathroom, retching drily into a toilet bowl already full of thin, blond vomit. When he switched the lights on she looked round at him once. Then she cringed back towards the toilet and hid her head in her arms.

‘Leah? Are you OK?’

After a bath that Callum insisted on running for her, Leah changed into pyjama bottoms and a big woolly cardigan. Reluctantly, she agreed to join Callum in the sitting room for a glass of water. Callum was shocked to see how loose the pyjamas were on her. As she walked towards him, the outline of her legs rose and fell sharply against the fabric. She was extremely thin. Callum was reminded of a fairground stilt-man, those broom-handle legs inside the baggy trousers.

‘You’ve lost a lot of weight,’ he said gently as she sat down. He felt guilty for having failed to notice the change in her before now.

Leah said nothing.

‘Here.’ Callum poured water for her, and then some wine for himself. ‘I’m going to have some of this, if that’s all right. I’m guessing you’ve had enough. You know, I didn’t drink you thank.’ It took Callum a few seconds to hear his mistake. ‘Sorry,’ he smiled. ‘Think you drank. I didn’t think you drank.’

Leah didn’t smile back. She realised that Callum was being very kind, but there was no way she could explain to him why she was so unhappy. Right now she didn’t even trust herself to talk. She felt horribly drunk. Unconsciously she pushed up the sleeves of her cardigan and started to scratch the eczema inside her elbows, which was already raw and glistening from a savaging earlier that evening.