‘Not in the last couple of hours, why? Have you heard from her?’ ‘Not since about four o’clock when I texted. Am I right in thinking she’s being a bit standoffish?’

‘Yeah, no idea.’ I opened the wine, poured, spilled, poured. ‘She was probably just busy doing something.’

Like reflecting on the fact I’d texted her: ZAC IS NOT YOUR HUSBAND. YOU SHOULD BE CONFIDING IN ME, NOT HIM.

I was a hypocrite, an addict, a tickbird feeding off the hide of their conversations, but still …

She’d texted: Wow! I don’t know what to do with that, Chris. I genuinely think you’re overreacting – do you think you might have trust and anger issues?

She was a deceitful fucking arsehat. But maybe the message had got through.

‘How’s that all going?’ Josh said, looking at Zac, at me. ‘Sarah, Biddy and you. Are you all OK?’ His expression was pained, braced for what I might tell him, as if I might say, Man, it’s fucking shit, to be honest – the cumulative physical and cognitive load of messing up two relationships concurrently is buckling me.

‘Yeah, mostly good,’ I said.

I wanted to be honest, I loved Josh, but Zac’s eyes were boring into me and anything I said would and could be used against me in the court of very limited public opinion. The only thing Zac could do to force a reaction would be to contradict what I was saying, to point out that things weren’t all good, in actual fact, based on his privileged insider status. But he wouldn’t do that when Josh –

‘Mostly good’s an interesting choice of words.’ He adjusted his glasses. He was winding me up, trying to.

‘How’s the prep for your trial going?’ I said.

‘I don’t want to talk about that.’

‘Sarah told me you were struggling with the lawyer’s fees.’

He nodded, shrugged. He was still, surprisingly, employed at Natural Opulence but had been asked to go on unpaid leave until he sorted out his life – which, at this rate, could take anything from a week to never.

Josh said to Zac, ‘I’ve already said you don’t need to pay me back, yeah? Anyway, I lent you that cash knowing you might not … Yeah, anyway, you know what I’m saying. I know you’re good for it, man.’

‘Yes, you’ve mentioned it already a couple of times,’ Zac said. ‘And of course, I appreciate it.’ He looked at me, did a mini eye roll – why was Josh bringing up money? ‘At least me being persecuted has helped Sarah out at uni or whatever.’

She’d used a photocopy of his administrative letter from the court to get an extension for her assignment on complementary hormone therapies: Zac was practically kin, we were his de facto guardians, we had to support him, she needed another week …