It was impossible to tell how long it took Rav and Max to arrive, but they came bounding up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Max took Zadie in his arms, twisted her heavy sheet of dirty hair away from her face and put his face level with hers. ‘Baby, it’s me. Tell me everything you’ve eaten and drunk in the last six hours or I’m calling Astrid and Bob.’

Zadie shuddered into a waking state and Max gestured for Chloe and Rav to leave. They went single file down the stairs until they reached the kitchen, which was covered in used glasses and plates. Without saying anything, Rav ran a sink of hot, soapy water, found some washing-up gloves under the sink and began to clean the dishes. Chloe found a tea towel in a drawer, presumably laundered by their long-suffering cleaner, and started to dry.

For a while they worked in silence, but sometime around the twentieth glass, Rav broke the silence.

‘You didn’t text me.’

‘The first time we met you didn’t text me.’

‘We didn’t have sex the first time we met.’

‘True.’

‘Was I that bad of a shag?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t got anything to compare you to.’

Rav laughed. ‘True.’

‘Do you think she’s going to be okay?’

‘I don’t know.’

It seemed surprising that Rav hadn’t lied, hadn’t said that of course she was going to be completely, totally, utterly fine.

‘I wanted to call an ambulance, but she wouldn’t let me.’

‘From what Max says, I think it’s quite a complicated situation.’

‘Max talks to you about that stuff?’

Rav nodded, his eyes still on the washing-up bowl. ‘A bit. Only lately. He’s under lots of pressure with rugby and this Australia deal. I think he’s having a tough time.’

‘She is, too.’

Rav’s face suggested that he wasn’t convinced. Chloe opened her mouth to argue but was distracted by Max’s arrival in the kitchen. ‘She’s okay,’ he said. ‘Swears blind it was just drinking.’

‘On her own? On a Wednesday afternoon?’ said Rav. ‘Mate, I don’t think that sounds like good news.’

Max shrugged. ‘If I tell her parents, she’ll be straight back to rehab.’

Chloe’s lips were moving to ask, Back?, but something stopped her. Zadie hadn’t ever mentioned rehab. She’d said nothing about it in all of the hundreds of hours they had spent talking about their mothers and their families and the things they were going to do differently when they were adults. Why not? Why hadn’t she trusted Chloe enough to tell her about it?

‘I know you’re not staying over so much,’ said Max, ‘but is there any chance you’d consider staying here this evening? She’s asking for you.’

‘Of course.’