Her injured toe had swollen into a ghoulish, purple cocktail sausage, too sore to touch, let alone waggle. Proper shoes of any kind were going to be out of the question for a while, which meant flip-flops with whatever she decided to wear that evening. Shona, tall and naturally slim, would look glamorous because she always did, Esther reflected gloomily, happy to be diverted by her phone, buzzing into life with a string of birthday messages. Viv, her parents, Lily, even Rick had remembered, from whatever highly paid job he was currently doing on Norwegian oil rigs.

Many happies. Gift on next visit. Honest! Rx

Esther smiled to herself, long since accepting of how much better she and her brother were at liking each other from a distance. She opened Lily’s last, releasing a little whoop at the sight of a link to a spa day gift for two in September.

Girls together! Happy Birthday Mum xx (Date moveable)

She scrolled to the most recent picture to arrive from Italy, of Lily and Matteo sitting cheek to cheek on Rome’s famous Spanish Steps, both in brightly coloured shorts and T-shirts and wearing matching sunglasses. Above their heads, a superimposed neon arrow pointed at a building under the caption: ‘RIP John Keats’. The familiar ache for her daughter swelled inside along with a sort of fear. The two of them were still so young. Still in the thick of it. Love. They had no idea it could go wrong.

The sensation of being watched was so sharp and unexpected that Esther’s neck clicked as she glanced up. She stared into the chest-high garden wilderness advancing on the little crumbling patio, seeing nothing. The landlord had once promised to provide some garden tools, but she had given up chasing. Foxes, she told herself again, flinging a last mouthful of tea at the brambles before limping back inside to shower.

4

Lucas placed his phone face down on his desk, out of temptation’s way, and stood up to stretch, reaching diagonally across the top of his head with first one arm, and then the other. He then closed his eyes, inhaling and exhaling deeply, trying the thing of keeping his tongue on the roof of his mouth, as Heidi had demonstrated.

‘You will achieve instant relaxation, but the out-breath must last for five seconds longer than the in-breath, and the exercise completed at least a total of four times to be effective.’ There was a commanding matter-of-factness to his girlfriend which Lucas loved almost more than anything. No passive aggression, no leading with emotions, no sea-changes of mood.