Esther stripped off the bottom sheet and then sat on the bed, holding a pillow to her face in the hope of finding some scent of Dylan, but getting nothing more than stale linen. For a moment she let all the usual longing and the worry fill her. She had brought Viv’s journal upstairs with her and picked it up now, wanting to write something about her feelings, as the thing was designed for, but then made a note of something to tell Viv instead, in the emails she had taken to sending whenever the mood took her, deciding not to care that the new impossible situation meant getting nothing in return. She then jotted a couple of work thoughts down too, galvanised by alarm at a recent suggestion by the CEO of her healthcare client that the launch magazine should become a broader-ranging, monthly publication with her in charge. Everyone was supposedly thinking about how to make it work, Esther most of all.

Starting on the duvet buttons, she almost lost heart. It might be high time, but it also felt like a new stage, close to giving up. To spur herself on, she took a photo of the room and sent it to Lily, saying:

Braving a tidy-up! Eeek. Wish me luck!

It being a Sunday, Esther had high hopes of hearing back straight away. She stayed online, giving the two ticks a couple more minutes, but they didn’t turn blue. Any excuse to contact Lily and she had been grabbing it, letting her know she was there. Matteo, long since back from his trip and up to speed on everything had helped enormously, but Lucas, as Lily kept reporting despairingly, was still keeping his distance, making the continuing gossip about his suspension even harder to bear. Esther messaged Lucas now, on a fresh surge of frustration.

Talk properly to Lily. She needs your help in coping. It isn’t just you going through this. E.

Scooping up the bed linen, Esther ferried it onto the landing and hurled it down the steep little staircase, aware as she did so of her head throbbing from the previous evening’s Halloween dinner. Not at her place, in the end, but Dimitri and Sue’s, a result of their pleading when Esther had tried to cry off a few days before. A kitchen supper, just the three of them, Sue had said cosily, but insisting it had to be in fancy dress. Esther at the last minute had swathed herself in a double sheet, using quantities of safety pins, only to feel somewhat feeble when she had been greeted by Dimitri in a diaphanous witch outfit – channelling a hint of Widow Twanky – and Sue, resplendent in a scarlet onesie with a forked tail, a horned headband perched in her wild carrot-red hair.