“You can’t give him any. You do know that.” Suze doesn’t react, and I eye her sternly. “You do know that, don’t you, Suze? What have you said to him?”

“I’ve said I’ll meet him at seven P.M. and give him some money,” mumbles Suze.

“Suze!”

“Well, what else can I do?”

“If you pay him once, he’ll have you in his power forever. Never give in to a blackmailer. Everyone knows that.”

“But what if he tells Tarkie?” Suze puts down her empty shot glass and thrusts her hands through her hair again. “Bex, what if I’ve really fucked up? What if Tarkie and I split up? What about the children?” Her voice is trembling. “I’ve jeopardized my whole life, everything….”

A guy from the Mexican band comes up and shakes his maracas at Suze with a beaming smile on his face. He offers her one to shake too, but he’s picked the wrong girl.

“Leave me alone!” yells Suze, and the maracas man backs away, startled.

For a while we both sit there in silence. My head is spinning a bit, and it’s not just from the tequila. I still have a zillion questions for Suze, like, Who made the first move? and What do you mean, “not exactly”? But I can’t start quizzing her now. The important thing is to get rid of Bryce.

“Suze, Tarkie won’t leave you,” I say abruptly.

“Why wouldn’t he? I’d leave me.” She looks up with miserable eyes. “I can be a real nightmare. I lose my temper with him and I say all kinds of frightful things….”

“I know,” I say awkwardly. “He told me. Look, Suze, you should know something. I’ve been in contact with Tarkie without telling you.”

Her eyes spark in shock and she draws a long breath. For an awful moment I think she’s going to shout at me. But then she exhales and the rage sort of subsides.

“Right,” she says at last. “I might have known. And he said, My wife’s a bitch.”

“No! Of course he didn’t!” I try to think of how to put it tactfully. “He said…um…you’d had difficulties.”

“Difficulties!” She gives a short, bitter laugh.

“No, but listen, Suze,” I continue eagerly. “It’s all good. Tarquin’s far stronger than you think. He’s separated from my dad now, he’s doing his own thing to help, and he sounds really positive. I don’t reckon Bryce brainwashed him at all. I think the reason he was so bad-tempered in L.A. was…other things.”

“Me.”

“Not just you. The whole situation. But now he’s got away…he feels useful…I think he’s in a better place.”

Suze is silent for a moment, mulling this over.

“Tarkie adores your dad,” she says at last. “Your dad is the father he would have loved to have had.”

“I know.”

“Did he say what they’re doing?”

“Of course not.” I roll my eyes. “He told me to give my dad some privacy and go back to L.A.”

“Maybe he’s got a point.” Suze draws her feet up onto her barstool and wraps her arms round her knees. “I mean, what are we doing? What are we all doing?”