Sylvia explained how the letters page worked, and where she got her ideas for the ‘at home’ section; she went through the process for pitching ideas to Roger, the politics of the features meetings, and the necessity of going to the pub at least once a week. She explained all this with a pang of longing for what she was about to temporarily lose and a simultaneous realisation of how much she’d learnt in this job. When she started here not so long ago she’d been just like Diane: a puppy with a new bone, desperately excited at the opportunity and determined to retain it at all costs. But somehow, despite all her best efforts, life had made her drop that bone, only for it to be quickly snaffled up by the next young terrier in the park.

She still had several weeks to go at the paper, and it felt as though Roger was rubbing her nose in it by getting Diane in for training so early. She was to shadow Sylvia in the next few weeks, go where she went, listen to her interviews, be there in her meetings, get friendly with her contacts, until – or so it felt to Sylvia – they would merge into the same person and when she left on maternity leave Roger wouldn’t even notice she’d gone. The only thing keeping her even slightly positive about the whole affair was Jim.

Since she’d moved back into the Kennington flat, he’d been different – he wasn’t fussing over her so much, he talked less about impending parenthood and more about their work, their friends, their lives in London, like he used to, before everything changed. She told him about Diane, about the fear she felt in handing over her job to a newcomer, the panic that she’d never get it back in quite the same way. And instead of dismissing her worries with meaningless platitudes or positive-thinking mantras, he listened, he sympathised and he tried to offer ways to cope. His empathy finally allowed her to breathe out and know it for the genuine support it was.

As part of Diane’s essential training she took her to El Vino’s on a late Thursday afternoon. Sylvia sipped a lime and soda while Janice and Marnie shared a bottle of white with Diane as they filled her in on Fleet Street’s sexual liaisons, indiscreetly pointing out the main protagonists if they were present in the bar – as many were, on a Thursday in the height of silly season, when the heat was so enduring that even Big Ben had packed up.

‘Valerie and Roger, really?’ Diane asked.

Janice leant forward. ‘Rumour has it, his wife just found out and kicked him out.’

‘Rumour has it? You mean you saw something in his office,’ Marnie said.

‘Not exactly. But I may have overheard a phone call. Something about custody. He’s getting them every other weekend.’