Which…you know. It’s her marriage and everything. Although I would have been very helpful and given her Dutch courage and prompted her when she ran out of words. I’m just saying.

Anyway, it’s fine. She’s gone outside the tent and I’m sitting by the Mexican band, drinking a Diet Coke to dilute the tequila. A guy in a poncho handed me a tambourine a few moments ago, and he looked so eager I didn’t have the heart to say no. So I’m banging it and singing in what I think is pretty good Spanish (“Aheya-aheya-aheya-aheya”) and trying not to picture Suze and Tarquin standing on the steps of a divorce court, when suddenly there she is, back again.

My heart gives this almighty swoop and my tambourine falls limply to my side. She’s standing by the flap of the tent, her face flushed, breathing hard, looking totally freaked out.

“What happened?” I venture as she approaches. “Suze, are you OK?”

“Bex, the trees on our estate,” she mutters feverishly. “The trees. Do you remember anything about them? Anything at all?”

Trees? What is she going on about?

“Um, no,” I say cautiously. “I don’t know anything about trees. Suze, focus. What happened? How were things left?”

“I don’t know.” She’s looking bleak.

“You don’t know?” I stare at her. “How can you not know? What did he say?”

“We talked. I told him. I mean, he didn’t quite understand to begin with….” She rubs her nose.

OK, I can just imagine the conversation. Suze saying, I’ve had this dreadful thing happen, Tarkie, and Tarkie thinking she’s lost her mascara.

“Did you actually tell him?” I demand severely. “Does he actually know what’s happened?”

“Yes.” She swallows. “Yes, he…he got it in the end. I mean, the signal was pretty patchy.”

“And?”

“He was really shocked. I think I’d kidded myself he might have guessed…but he hadn’t.”

Honestly. Of course he hadn’t guessed. This is Tarkie. Only I don’t say this to Suze, because she’s in full flight.

“I kept saying I was sorry and it wasn’t as bad as he probably imagined”—Suze gulps—“and that I couldn’t, you know, bring myself to go the whole way with Bryce, and he said, Was he supposed to be grateful for that?”

Good point, Tarkie, I think silently. Although also: Good point, Suze. I mean, she wasn’t actually unfaithful, was she? In the legal sense.

(Is there a legal sense? I must ask Luke; he’ll know.)

(Actually, no, I won’t ask Luke or he’ll wonder why I want to know, and that could lead to all sorts of misunderstandings, which I really don’t need right now.)

“Anyway, in the end I said we need to meet up and talk, as soon as possible,” Suze continues, her voice quivering. “And he said no.”

“No?” I gape at her.

“He said he was doing something very important for your dad and he wasn’t going to interrupt it. And then the signal finally went. So.” Suze shrugs, as though she’s not bothered, but I can see her hands clenching and unclenching nervously.