Verity laughed again, then turned to look through the kitchen, down to the dining room. It was open plan, but Max and Rav were far enough away that, with the music on, they couldn’t quite make out what they were talking about.

‘They look very intense,’ said Verity. ‘I hope they’re not talking about business.’

‘They will be. Rav thinks Max is some kind of genius.’

‘You don’t?’

Chloe looked apologetic. Verity was not Zadie. She wouldn’t laugh at Max in the same way. In the way he needed to be laughed at. ‘I’m sure he’s very good at what he does.’

‘He is.’ Verity’s prim manner had returned. ‘Shall we go through?’

Rav wasn’t drunk, not properly. But he wore the expression he always got after a few glasses of wine, when he was in a really good mood and wanted to throw love out on to the people around him. If Chloe was the only one around when it happened, he would shower her with praise, telling her that she was making a difference to young people’s lives with her job, that she was more beautiful in her mid-thirties than she had been in her twenties, that she was funny and clever and would inevitably write an award-winning play one day. But tonight his megawatt love was aimed at Max.

‘So, go on,’ he said. ‘Tell us everything that’s happened since we last saw each other. I want to hear the Max Trentino success story.’

‘Oh, it’s not such a success. Plenty of cock-ups along the way.’

‘Go on, tell us. How’d you go from a rugby bum to’ – Rav spread his hands out, gesturing around the room – ‘all this?’

Max adopted a falsely modest expression, clearly looking forward to dominating the conversation. ‘So, I went off to play rugby in Oz – you knew that. Was there for a while. Dad’s dad was from Melbourne so I was able to play properly. Looked like it might go all the way, but then I bust my shoulder.’

‘You two don’t know any of this?’ Verity looked confused. ‘You’ve been friends for so long.’

There was a brief, tense silence. How was it possible that Max hadn’t explained anything before they got here? Perhaps he had assumed that Verity would be so uninterested she wouldn’t ask.

Chloe waited to see who would break the silence, determined that she wasn’t going to be the one to make things less awkward. She hadn’t wanted to come here in the first place, so she was damned if she was going to do anything to make Max’s life easier. Eventually, he said, ‘We lost touch when I went to Oz and we only reconnected recently. You have to remember, my love, we’re ancient. There wasn’t any Instagram when we were at university.’