We kissed, cuddled … My watch strap caught on her hair. Zac had gifted a TAG Heuer to me, an Olivia Burton to Sarah, secured through his work at cost price. Because, like, we’d made really big changes in our lives. Because we’d helped him. Because he respected us or whatever.

Biddy and I had ferocious sex, settled, held each other. Yeah, we supposed at length, it was time to get up. I finished washing the previous night’s dishes, sat on a stool eating the toast and poached eggs Biddy had made me.

7.58 am. Zac: BTW Sarah came home at THREE AM (!) and woke me because she wanted to talk about The Ass!

The Ass was Zac’s nickname for Assi, the shorter of the two Lebanese men from My Aeon – they’d been dating for a week. His bigger friend, Sarah had told me his name too, but I’d quickly forgotten. I chewed, swallowed, texted: Is she OK??? How are the kids?

Biddy and I went to her room again, rode each other hard, lay panting on our backs.

8.43 am. Biddy was in the shower, Winford and Noel were in the kitchen frying up their breakfast. Zac: Apologies for not replying sooner, dude. Sarah’s awake and we’ve been talking about her, um, ‘adventures’ last night :O Long story! I’ll fill you in later. Shhhh :)

‘Hope it all goes well today,’ Noel said at the stovetop, kindly faced, bacon rashers in tongs.

Winford was in his pyjamas, hair askew. ‘Sadly, I never met Aidan. But from everything Biddy and Noel have told me, he sounds just wonderful.’

‘What are you guys up to today?’ I said.

‘Oh, good question,’ Winford said. ‘I haven’t even thought about it.’

Biddy emerged from the bathroom, lipstick on, eye shadow applied. ‘Let’s go.’

It was too warm for early August, our climate system was collapsing. We’d jittered and twitched through the wet cold of Melbourne’s winter, and now this …

Biddy rode her Lekker in her high-waisted denim shorts, her Dandy Warhols T-shirt, tweed riding helmet, open leather sandals. I rode in her slipstream wearing one of her T-shirts, my dirty black jeans, feeling anxious and exhausted and in love.

I’d been introduced to Biddy’s parents, Chris and Nora, at the National Gallery a fortnight earlier after running into them by accident. The four of us had stood together at the bar sipping wine, the reasonable assumption being that I was Biddy’s platonic, art-loving friend, a married man with children who … Yes, my two children, Oliver and Sophie, I could talk about them. And my wife, Sarah, I could sing her praises too.