The sofa was eating me, hungry as ever. I could give in, stop fighting, live the rest of my life under its cushions with the dog hair and missing coins.

‘All right, so …’ She looked at me, at the wall behind me. ‘Someone found Aidan the night he –’

‘Oooh, what’s this?’ Winford said at the door, an open vodka bottle in his hand. ‘Are we having a party?’

Biddy turned, smiled. ‘Oh, hey, Win. We’re just rehearsing a few bits from my show. Chris is giving some feedback.’

‘Oh, isn’t he just lovely.’ He looked at me, winked. ‘Would you mind if I joined you?’ He sat next to me on the sofa, rubbed his hands together, moved a little closer. ‘Ready when you are, maestra. I won’t say a word.’

Biddy looked towards us, past us, cleared her throat. ‘We know someone found Aidan, but we don’t know who it was. It was a Thursday evening. What I remember most clearly is this – a phone call from my dad. Can you come home, Biddy? I remember the tone of his voice, the immediate certainty that Aidan had finally achieved what he’d been so determined to achieve, that he was gone.’ She stopped, looked at the roof, bit her lip, shook her hands. ‘Oh, yeah … So, a woman found him on her way back from work. She’d spotted something near the bike path behind Coles, went to investigate, found Aidan there, cold but still breathing, phoned for help.’

Winford took a slug of his vodka. I shuffled sideways, put some space between us. Noel was in their room, surely, his place of refuge when Winford was wasted.

‘We know she stayed with him until the ambulance arrived,’ Biddy said. ‘Aidan was freezing but could still –’

Fuck. No. Wawawawawawa. I wanted to support Biddy. I believed in her, in her show, in Aidan, in the story she was telling, her reasons for telling it, but –

Winford’s eyes were still on Biddy, a wry smile on his lips.

‘We’ll never know who that woman was. But I’m grateful to her for being there with Aidan at the end –’

I was at the end too … My watch – 11.15 pm. Going by the portents, we’d be in the crack den for another hour at least, maybe longer. We’d then brush our teeth, during which Winford would probably stagger into the bathroom, as he tended to do when he was wasted, tell me that he loved Biddy, that he thought I was treating her badly, that he fancied Zac. We’d give him the slip, go to Biddy’s room, close the door, get undressed, get into bed, have sex, more sex, more sex, then – morning!

Biddy lowered her arms, sat on the piano stool facing us. ‘What do you think?’

‘Oh, that was very dramatic,’ Winford said. ‘You got me right here.’ He slapped his chest, wiped his eyes.