Jessica wipes the back of her hand across her mouth. ‘Oh yeah. We all wanted to leave, you know?’

So Satnam had talked to Tash and Jess about this, but not to her – not until last Sunday. She feels winded, suddenly, and sad. Over the months of their friendship she’d supposed Satnam had told her everything, all her secrets, her desires, her deepest fears. She’s only just learning how much she does not know and the experience is baffling and painful.

‘Why?’

‘When our grades started falling we should have read the runes and gone home. Like after the summer and that shitty maths course we were forced to do. But it was just, like, impossible.’ She has her back to the wall, pressing into its hard surface with her hands. She has pushed her sleeve up and on her skin, furred as a cat’s, a side effect of the anorexia eating her alive, Nevis spots the tracks from cutting. ‘Our parents would have killed us. Tash is the great hope of the family and Satnam’s parents were hassling her to get married and whatever and I knew mine would go mental. They’re high-flyer medic types. Dad says I’m the only bulb in the family with a dimmer switch. So, you know…’

Nevis waits for the stream of chatter to subside. ‘Satnam was doing much better this term.’

‘Well, yeah, for now. But, honestly, how much longer was that likely to last? I was doing brilliantly last term but now I’m back to failing everything.’

Feeling a sudden desire to stand up for her friend, Nevis goes on, ‘But Satnam was working really hard. So why wouldn’t it have lasted?’

Jessica’s hand comes up and covers her mouth. ‘Oh my God. You really don’t know anything, do you?’

The conversation is beginning to feel like a dance whose steps Nevis has not been taught. Confusion whirls inside her and finding no release settles in a knot somewhere inside her mind. She watches the expression on Jessica’s face harden.

‘Look, leaving Avon was just something we were talking about, OK? Like a fantasy, you know, ditching it all in and going to live on a beach in Bali or whatever. Everyone was pissed. Tash was being her usual bitch-self and she and I got into it a bit. Satnam was just trying to make the peace but Tash said some harsh things to her that were totally uncalled for. It was the kind of stupid drunk-row people get into, so let’s just leave it.’

‘But you said it was about an ex.’

Jessica shakes her head. ‘I’ve got to go.’

This whole conversation has been baffling. Why is Jessica being so cryptic? What’s got into her all of a sudden? What is it that she knows and isn’t saying?