‘Is it true? I heard you’d … well, that you and Trent …’ Lisa starts.

Trent must have called Lisa, assuming that would be the first place Maddy would have gone. But now that she knows what a liar Trent is, she feels compelled to check.

‘Who told you?’

‘Helen.’

Maddy hadn’t been expecting this.

‘Don’t talk to me about that whore,’ Maddy spits.

‘Oh God,’ Lisa groans. ‘Oh, babes, the thing is she thought you knew. You know … about her and Trent.’

‘You mean, you knew? About them?’ Maddy squeezes her eyes shut, trying to make sense of what Lisa has just said. ‘Why would she think I would be OK about her fucking my husband?’ Her voice has risen hysterically. ‘And why didn’t you tell me? Why, Lis? Why? If you knew?’

There’s a dreadful, strained silence as Lisa realises her own culpability. Her admission has put them into new friendship territory. Maddy waits for an explanation. She can picture Lisa putting her hand on her gin-fogged brow. She, by contrast, has never felt more sober.

‘I don’t know. I wanted to warn you, but it’s just you and Trent … you don’t seem to … well, you’re more focused on your career than him and …’ Lisa is furiously backtracking.

‘And that gives Helen the right to …? Jesus!’ Maddy explodes, not believing what she’s hearing. ‘How long? And don’t lie, Lis. Just tell me the truth. How long has it been going on? With her?’

‘Two, maybe three.’

‘Weeks? Months?’

There’s an ominous silence. ‘Lisa?’

‘Years,’ she says quickly and Maddy knows she’s squeezing her eyes shut.

The betrayal feels like Lisa’s punched her. Humiliation is the knock-out upper cut that floors Maddy entirely. A three-year affair, going on behind her back. So not a fling then. A relationship. A serious relationship. And Lisa let it happen without warning her?

‘Maddy, please,’ Lisa starts, begging for understanding, but Maddy is so furious, she throws the phone with all her might against the wall with a feral yell.

As soon as it’s out of her hand, she knows this is the worst act of self-sabotage yet.

‘No,’ she gasps, springing across the room, seeing the shattered screen. She turns it on and off, but the phone is dead. ‘No, no, no, no, no.’

There’s a lull in the noise on the other side of the wall. Have the neighbours heard her?

Quietly, she gets up and puts the smashed phone on the coffee table, the parts dropping along with her tears. She takes a shuddery intake of breath and walks over to the window, suddenly needing some air.

She nudges aside the blind. There are two buildings opposite – hardly the sea view the listing had promised, but there’s a sliver of moonlight on the black sea in between. She has never, ever felt more alone in her whole life.

She leans her head against the cold window as she starts to sob.

5

Pilcharding

There’s a view to the pier through the chimneys on the rooftop of Helga’s fisherman’s cottage. As she gets up from where she’s been using the last of the grout to fix the leaking skylight, she catches sight of the starlings. The murmuration is breathtaking in the dusky light. She loves how their flick-flacking antics create shadow shapes against the white sky, as they swoop and dive in unison. She knows the clever starlings group together to flummox the falcons who might otherwise pick them off, but they also look like they’re having fun, and she wonders if they’re swapping tips and information about their days before they settle down to roost under the shelter of the iron pier. She shades her eyes as more squadrons of starlings join the ranks and there’s a huge twisting mass of them, turning the sky momentarily into the shape of a whale.