‘Women cannot resist him?’ Beatrice finished the sentence for her. ‘Women fall at his feet? Lie prostrate in front of him so that he can walk all over them? True, some women do. But no one man can be universally loved. I mean, he is an exceptionally handsome man, and there is a gravelly quality to his voice that is pleasing to the ear. But it is all style and no substance, you understand. He is really just a beautiful bag of hot air.’

‘B!’

‘Don’t “B” me. If anyone needs to hear this, it is you, Kicks. Though I have been telling you this for long enough,’ Beatrice said, patting Kuki’s hands, which had reached out to stop her from saying more. ‘He became her entire world, you see, and she got lost in him,’ she explained to Saskia.

‘You make me sound so pathetic,’ Kuki said.

‘Well, that’s because you are, love.’

‘He was a good husband and a great father,’ Kuki said.

‘Oh, Kicks! He was no such thing,’ Beatrice protested.

‘That is what you will write about Emil Coetzee in your article,’ Kuki said, speaking directly to Saskia and evincing a determination that was surprising. ‘He is not a perfect man by any means or measure, but he was a good husband and a great father.’

‘And where in that very diplomatic description is the man who left you to grieve the death of your son alone while he made sure to put it good to Marion Hartley? I found you, sixteen hours after you had received the news, still cradling the phone in your arms, still crying! Where is the good husband and great father in all of that?’

‘B!’

‘Don’t “B” me, Kicks, love. You want to rewrite history, and I won’t let you. You want to make Emil Coetzee the paragon of man. But he is not,’ Beatrice said before she took Kuki’s hands in hers and gave them a gentle squeeze. ‘I know you need him to be good … for your sake … for the boy’s sake. But he is not, Kicks. He is not.’

Kuki started crying, racking tortured sobs that sounded ugly in Saskia’s ears. Saskia did not believe in crying. Crying did not accomplish anything. Crying was what girls did when they thought the world gave a damn.

As she watched Kuki place her head on Beatrice’s lap and Beatrice stroke Kuki’s hair, Saskia felt not just disgust but also a deep revulsion. Although she did not really know what she had been hoping for, Saskia was sure that what she was witnessing was not it. Was this the healing power of sisterhood that feminists were always banging on about? she wondered as she saw herself out the front door. Saskia did not need sisterhood. She had other ways of coping with the world.