‘When’s your next session?’ she asked.

‘I’m not sure yet – Vicky’ll confirm in the next few days. Look, I’m knackered. I’m just going to have a quick shower and then you can tell me about your day. How did the viewing go at the Woolwich riverside complex?’

Clare nodded. ‘Really good, it’s just a question of deciding on the unit. Nice couple, early thirties. They’ve been scrimping for years, doing all these side-hustle jobs. Unlike our young friends, who want what they want when they want it.’

She began crooning the song in breathy Marilyn-style vocals, but, Melia still on my mind, I didn’t stick around to hear the next line.

*

Of course, Clare was not the only chess piece on the board I needed to consider if our liaisons were to continue undetected: there was also Kit. Easy enough to tell him the same story of career coaching sessions; more difficult was the fact that the flats Melia and I used were in the Greenwich area, mostly on the peninsula, and therefore on our route home. Though the water rats had a WhatsApp group to let one another know which boat we’d be getting, I was still caught out twice over the course of the affair. The first time, Kit joined me on the later boat without warning and I claimed to be meeting Vicky in North Greenwich instead of Shad Thames, an unlikelihood not challenged.

The second time, Steve was on the same boat and there was no way I could hope to say I was getting off at his stop and not be accompanied at least part of the way. (‘I’ll just leave you here, Steve. This is the building where I meet Kit’s girlfriend for a spot of fornication.’) I had no choice but to text Melia a cancellation, turning my head from him to hide my frustration. I remember the boat’s windows were veined with dried rain from heavy showers earlier in the day and in a better mood, I’d have thought their tracks beautiful. Instead, I wanted to smash the glass with the heel of my hand. Turning up at home with some tale of Vicky having being double-booked with a VIP client, I then had the collateral unpleasantness of Clare holding my hand while I tackled a teacher training application I’d never wished to make and had no intention of submitting. Some extremists punish faithlessness with death, but, believe me, this ran it a close second.

*

‘Do you feel guilty?’ I asked Melia, as we lay entwined after sex. It was the fourth meeting, if I remember. A townhouse on the peninsula, an ultramodern version of my own home, though a meaner slice, a cheaper construction (the rental rate? £4,000 a month). The bedroom we commandeered was at the rear of the property, where the light wouldn’t be noticed by neighbours, the bed a preposterous cushioned velvet thing, its inelegant proportions reflected to infinity in two facing walls of mirrors.

‘About Kit? No way.’ In the low light, her irises were burnt umber, her black mascara smudged.

‘Have you ever thought about ending it? I mean, if he makes you so unhappy you’re doing this. If you think he’s not good to you.’

Was there a splash of hope in the glance she gave me before lifting a slender arm and flicking her fingers as if to bat off a wasp? ‘I don’t think he’s good for me, is that the same thing? And where would I even live if we did break up? My credit rating is a disaster, I wouldn’t be able to raise a deposit.’

‘You could get something through work?’

‘Nothing comes up even close to what I’m paying now – and I can’t afford that. And I’ve got no intention of living in one of those awful flat shares with no heating and mould on the walls, so don’t try hooking me up with your friend at work. She obviously has no pride.’

‘She obviously has no money,’ I corrected, gently. ‘Regan would kill for your flat. How much do you and Kit owe, anyway? What kind of figures are we talking about?’

Her answer was mind-boggling: well over a hundred thousand pounds between the two of them. The debt earned almost as much in interest as she did from her job. Was this normal for her age group? It was like a high-interest mortgage on your life.

‘Can your family not help?’

‘My parents haven’t got a bean – we don’t speak, anyway. And my sister would rather finance, I don’t know, a Free All Paedophiles campaign, than help me.’

I’d heard a little from Clare about the enmity between Melia and her sister and it sounded to me like straight-forward sibling rivalry, albeit one that had extended to a falling-out on Melia’s part with her parents. The gist seemed to be that Melia had had the looks and talent growing up, the promise of stardom as an actor, but now the sister had eclipsed her by acquiring a wealthy husband, producing twin sons and launching a business designing school satchels that had already won an entrepreneur award.

‘I wish I could help you, but I haven’t got a whole lot myself.’ I took a long breath. ‘You know the house is Clare’s, don’t you?’

There was a silence and then Melia raised herself onto a bent elbow. Her face blazed. ‘Seriously? I didn’t know, no. I thought you owned it fifty-fifty.’

‘Nope, it’s a hundred per cent hers – held in trust by her parents, in fact, to protect her from thieves like me. I’m as poor as a church mouse.’ Though I sounded blithe enough, I could feel, once more, that new burn of umbrage at the inequality of my position.

‘I had no idea,’ Melia said. There was a darkening in her eyes and I thought, This is it. She thought she’d line me up, she thought we’d set ourselves up with half the proceeds. It made sense that she’d be the sort of woman who didn’t bother with gaps between relationships (in my experience, the better looking someone is, the more likely they are to be an overlapper). And in intuiting this, I understood that I’d exploited her. Let her seduce me when I knew all along I had nothing to offer her, not even an expensive trinket on her birthday.

But she surprised me with her sudden squeezing against me. ‘Well, that makes sense because I’m only ever attracted to men who have nothing. Nothing in monetary terms, I mean.’ Her tone was tender, consoling. ‘You still get to live in an amazing home, have this amazing lifestyle.’

‘You want to make soya lattes for tourists, be my guest. I’ll see if we’ve got an opening.’ Seeing her unable to muster a chuckle, I said, ‘You could have anyone, Melia. Ditch Kit, ditch me, and find someone who can give you what you want. There’s no shame in wanting a great lifestyle. There must be thousands of bankers or tech rich kids who’d be happy to go out with you.’

‘I just told you, I’m not attracted to those guys,’ she said.

It struck me that I would have expected someone Melia’s age to protest that she preferred to be totally self-sufficient, the good feminist, and I said as much now.

‘How am I supposed to be self-sufficient?’ she demanded. ‘I’m paid peanuts at Hayter Armstrong.’

‘You’re a junior in a structured training programme,’ I reminded her. ‘Everyone loves you, you’ll get promoted soon.’

‘It takes too long!’ she cried, frustrated. ‘I don’t want to be rich when I’m old, I want to be rich while I’m young! It would be different if I was starting from scratch, but debt is the worst. It’s like knots tying you to the starting blocks. Every time you move, they just tighten.’