‘I feel like you both want the same thing,’ Peggy said, and the moment she said it she and Greta realised they’d been wrong about everything. It wasn’t about being together or being apart. It was about how to live. Heidi and Dell were locked in a deep, elemental disagreement about whether to fight or whether to surrender and it would never be settled. They’d be at war for ever. Greta had been right to bring up the fight in the flat all those years ago – somehow this irreparable fissure had its roots in Ian. Greta and Peggy saw, now, that Dell and Heidi had been in cahoots and Heidi had almost lost everything and it had broken something in them finally.

‘Maybe Dell’s trying to make it up to you,’ Greta said.

And Heidi looked at her with so much hate it would never be mentioned again. In that one look, Peggy and Greta realised they would never understand.

‘We love you.’ No one was sure who Peggy was saying this to. Heidi looked behind her, half expecting to see someone close by – a waiter, maybe, or maybe someone they knew from work or someone who could overhear. But it was just as possible she really was saying it to Heidi. Peggy’s face was giving nothing away, possibly because even Peggy didn’t know what she was saying. It happens. People say things all the time they don’t really understand. One thing leads to another. There was a pattern to a conversation. They all knew it – they’d made a study of it. They weren’t monsters. Any of the people in the café would do the same. It was just a set of questions and answers – like the manual at the call centre.

No one was originally moral. No one was particularly ethical, it had gone too far for that. Tribes, villages, towns, cities, global communities. There were pathways and they all moved around in them. So maybe they were talking in earnest, out of love and concern for each other, in an attempt to understand the difficulty Heidi was experiencing, but also maybe it was just the next thing that needed to be said in the conversation theatre so they could maintain their cover. If they’d been in an empty café, none of them would be talking. Heidi would have told them the news, possibly – it was information, and information wants to be free – but there would have been no discussion. They all knew. Greta and Peggy would have nodded and that would have been the end, just like it had been every other time.

‘Do you want another coffee?’ Heidi said. Greta and Peggy nodded. Heidi put the Game & Play in her bag and got up to order more coffee. Greta and Peggy talked about the weather and dug at the bottom of their empty cups with their spoons until Heidi came back.