‘Do you want to meet for coffee tomorrow?’ I asked her. ‘We could go somewhere in town, if you like, away from the hospital, I mean.’

I wanted her to see that she could trust me, that I’d keep her secret, that nobody from work would find out. I thought she was going to turn me down but to my surprise she looked at me gratefully, ‘Are you sure?’

After that, we fell into the habit of meeting up once a week or so. We’d go for coffee in an out-of-the-way place in town, or sometimes I’d go to her lovely house, The Willows, when Oliver wasn’t in. We were unlikely friends, but friends we became. I honestly think I was the only person in the world she could talk to. And I thought how strange and sad life is, that someone like Rose with all the grand and important friends she must have, had only me, a near stranger, to confide in. How different people are, aren’t they, from how they first appear? I tried my best to comfort her because I felt so sorry for her. She told me that she wanted to forgive Oliver, that he knew he’d made a horrible mistake, that he regretted everything.

‘Can you forgive him, though?’ I asked, surprised. I tried to think how I would feel if it were Doug cheating on me. I didn’t think I would be able to get past it, to be honest, not if we had a baby.

A strange expression came over her face and suddenly she didn’t look quite so vulnerable any more. In fact, she looked quite fierce. ‘I will not let that bitch destroy my family,’ she said, and she sort of spat the words at me and I remember being shocked. ‘I will not let that happen,’ she said.

A week or so later she came looking for me on the ward. She looked dreadful, I could tell something was very wrong. She pulled me into an empty office, her face deathly white. ‘She’s pregnant, Beth,’ she said. ‘Nadia. The girl my husband has been fucking.’

I’ll never forget her saying that word. I’d never heard her swear before, she just wasn’t the type. But she said it with such bitterness, such venom. My hand flew to my mouth. ‘Oh no!’