‘It’s not New Age bullshit,’ she’d said, fists clenching. ‘It’s naturopathy. And who was it who took her to the GP again to finally get to the bottom of this? Was it you, Chris? No. You did nothing, like always.’

My body trembling, voice quivering. ‘Three months, Sarah? How could she go misdiagnosed for so long? What the fuck is wrong with you?’

‘She’ll be fine, Chris. She’s better now anyway. You’re overreacting.’

My head down, up again, guilt clogging my gullet. ‘Three fucking months, Sarah. I fucking hate your hippy bullshit.’

‘Stop being such a fucking arsehole, Chris.’

I smiled at Mel. ‘Pissed off’s a bit of an exaggeration. We were both just concerned for Sophie.’

She nodded, I nodded, turned to face the stage. I could have told Mel that Zac was sleeping with her best friend Jia, who was in Melbourne for a few weeks before heading back to America. He’d texted me at midnight on Saturday: MY FUCKING DICK MAN!!! Then, five minutes later: I’m banging Jia, man, and it’s amazing. AMAZING. A hundred times better than I could ever have imagined. There’s music coming from downstairs, I’m on MDMA, and we still have the WHOLE NIGHT AHEAD OF US.

I could have worded up Mel, shown her the texts, but Zac had asked me not to say anything unless the relationship blossomed, in which case he’d tell her himself.

The young man bowed to patchy applause. ‘Thanks for having me.’

Wimp.

Josh returned with a fresh whisky, hugged and kissed Mel as she stood. ‘Good luck, babe, you’ve got this.’

She walked across the room, loosened the microphone stand, lowered it. ‘Hello, everyone, my name’s Mel Marchesi and I wanted to say thanks to these two lovely women over here for publishing my work. This piece is called “What They Didn’t Teach You at Astronaut School”.’

A ripple of applause. I watched Josh watching Mel, felt tears gathering, blinked them away.

‘Number one,’ Mel said. ‘In space, literally everyone can hear you scream.’

Laughter.

‘Number two. The International Space Station has an Olympicsized swimming pool but the diving board is out of commission for health and safety reasons.’

Laughter. I laughed too, pretended to, looked at Zac, one leg crossed over the other, still in his Boss work suit – he was chuckling, seemed really into it. Looked at Josh, beaming, laughing, in love. Looked at … Who was that babe on the other side of the room? And was she looking at me or Zac? I kept watching until she looked across again, smiled, wasn’t sure.

I pretended to applaud loudly when Mel finished. She returned to the table, beaming, sat.

‘That was amazing, babe,’ Josh said, squeezing her thigh. ‘You nailed it.’