The tour went as planned, the wine was poured, sticky salmon accompanied long, digressing accounts of which universities they had attended, how they’d fallen into their various careers, and when they’d met their partners. It occurred to Veronica that in fact her very first partner, her very first kiss, had been procured at Sarah’s house. That summer. Sarah had not then been ready for such things, and had they been guessing all those years ago, they would surely have bet on Veronica marrying first, Veronica being the one to spawn a family. Had they bet on those things? As they reminisced across the table, memories crawled out of sealed wood.

For Veronica, it was a peculiar, scrambling resurfacing. She had so long held Sarah and the wholesome summer at her house in nostalgic regard, that she had somehow forgotten all about the less virtuous pastimes they’d together created: the obsessions they’d had with lists and people, and choices, and hierarchies, and the future. As conversation floated around her, Veronica struggled to remember the details, but slowly, the hum of Sarah’s voice seemed to rub away at rose-tint, and Veronica shook her head in sudden comprehension. Because of course. Of course! It was never Sarah’s happy home that had made her feel such contentment. That would only have grated on her. No, it was the constant battle between them. It was because she’d proven that summer, that despite her own lack of the family life she longed for, she could gain the upper hand, even in Sarah’s home.

It wouldn’t have been as contrived as that. At the time, aged twelve, Veronica had probably felt only an inexorable yearning. But she realised now that like fixing, before fixing, this too had been a pattern for her, the precise point from which her confidence stemmed: the triumph of not only being fine without the things she secretly lacked, but better, better than fine, better than anyone else, better than everyone else. Only that meant that others had to be worse, feel worse.

No wonder Sarah had been reluctant to reignite things.

Though now, the loser was not Sarah, but her, Veronica – weak, timid, without power. No longer better, but visibly, emptily, lesser. Exposed.

Looking at Sarah across the table, it occurred to Veronica that she’d never actually been the winner, not even when they were children. The difference was only that she’d had armour then. Armour that she’d foolishly shed.

It had happened gradually. As she’d grown into herself – discovering teaching, meeting the children in Kenya, and then George – the taking off of metal was imperceptible really, inching in its progression. But one day, instead of pretending to be enough, she somehow had become, truly, authentically, enough.

Until once again, she wasn’t. Not even for George.

Veronica took a sip of water and tried again to recall the years before that. How she had done it. How she’d convinced herself, and Sarah, and others, that she was better. What her armour had been made from. And then it hit her. Even without remembering the blurred details of that summer, it was clear. Before she’d become a fixer, a builder-upper, the easiest route to triumph, to being ‘better’, her old trick, had been to pilfer from others.