‘Well, you are both idiots. Especially you. With your expertise.’ Esther flapped her arms around, not knowing how to find the words for the implosion taking place inside her. ‘Picking at something that was fine, and making it not fine.’ She slapped her palm against the Perspex wall of the bus shelter. ‘I thought you lot were supposed to know better. I thought you professionals didn’t pull things apart without knowing how to put them back together. Really, Viv… this is beyond stupid, and you can tell Brian so from me.’

‘I am telling him nothing,’ she whispered with a defeated feebleness Esther had never seen before. ‘We have got ourselves in a hole, and I am sorry but I cannot, right at this minute, see a way out. I can’t just step away from it, Esther, from how it makes me – us – feel. But thank you for at least… trying. I know that is what your anger is about. Like I say, you don’t give up on people, Esther Shaw, and it is one of the many remarkable things about you, as well as the most self-destructive. Like staying with Lucas all those years…’

‘You are not diverting me with Lucas,’ Esther retorted. ‘What about physician heal thyself, eh? Put that in your pipe instead, because this is total shit.’

‘I’ve really got to go now.’

‘Me too. And I do not want a hug.’ Esther sidestepped her, flapping her own arms again, this time in a shooing motion. ‘You don’t deserve one. I do not fancy your husband,’ she yelled as Viv walked away. ‘I never have and I never shall,’ she hollered, even louder, widening her eyes defiantly at a strolling couple giving her curious looks. She was too exasperated even to cry, while Viv did not so much as twitch, let alone break stride.

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