This is what Simone has been waiting for. Preparing for. On cue, she pretends to be aghast. She shakes her head as if astonished, indignant, and pushes her mug of tea away from her. “Of course not!”

“Are drugs a problem? Or alcohol?”

“Of course not!” Now Simone flaps her hand dramatically around the room. Thank goodness she has just finished cleaning it; she cannot imagine what the woman would have thought if she’d arrived an hour earlier. “Does this look like a drug den?”

“It looks very nice,” concedes Polly. “Which brings me to my next question – are you the registered tenants of this flat?”

Simone freezes. This, she hadn’t prepared for, and she doesn’t know what to say. She wishes again that Terry was there to help her, to think for her, to tell her what to do. They can’t lose the flat, she can’t give it up, she can’t go back to the estate. “It’s Terry’s cousin’s,” she answers carefully. “Milly. Her husband died, so we’re staying with her for a while, keeping her company.”

“Oh? So you have help from an auntie type too?” Polly’s smile returns at this, clearly pleased with such a development.

“Oh yes, of course,” confirms Simone. “Did I not mention that? She’s on holiday though, this week.”

Now the smile dissolves just a little. “Okay. Well, I’ll leave you my card,” she says. “And I’ll be in touch with Dominic’s school, just to check on his progress there. Would you be open to setting up a plan with us, together with his teachers? Aside from this, knife injury, it seems he’s struggling a little with some aggression in the classroom.”

Simone nods and quickly dons her now familiar ‘good parent’ costume. “Yes, I know. I’ve spoken to his teacher about it already. We need to get that sorted, of course. I’ve no idea where it’s all come from.”

Even as she speaks it, this line, this lie that she has repeated now twice in a week, she can hear her own parents’ – they have no idea, no idea. Their denial twists itself around her throat. But she has delivered the sentiment as convincingly as ever, so it is surprising when Polly continues to stare, to wait for more. Testing her? Challenging her? Defying her? Offering her rescue?

Simone doesn’t flinch. Inside, she imagines herself breaking down, telling Polly everything, flooding and fouling the newly cleaned flat with the filthy truth. There is a surging pulse somewhere in that thought, thumping, pushing her to do it. Do it. Do it. But she doesn’t know if she can trust Polly. Terry always says it, they can’t trust anyone except each other. She imagines Dominic and Jasmine being dragged away from her. She imagines Terry’s reaction when he arrives home. She takes a breath. She imagines something else: herself mustering all the passion and certitude that is necessary in order not to fall into the abyss. And she doesn’t flinch.

“I’ll be in touch with the school then,” says Polly finally, satisfied at last by Simone’s un-crumbling. Either that, or the wall of denial has tired her. Or else it is six o’clock, and she’s hot. Polly takes one last, long look around the flat, letting her eyes linger for a moment on Jasmine, then she smiles at Simone, that unfailing smile, exhaling deeply, heavily, as she did at the start, two friends who have exchanged woes.