None of them was particularly hungry, but after a little discussion, they agreed to split the pie leftovers in three and have it cold; while Raphaela served that up and Susie laid the table, Beatrice made a quick vinaigrette and put out salad, cheese, olives and bread. They ate around her kitchen table, passing the bread, cheese and salad around as necessary, and Beatrice felt a rare moment of true companionship – one she hadn't really had since living in France: the pleasure of sharing simple but nice food with friends.

Under the table, she felt Ella's knee touch hers lightly whenever one or the other moved in their seat to pass or reach for something. She didn't try to facilitate it, and she suspected that Ella didn't either, but nonetheless when once their legs touched and there was no reason for either of them to move, neither of them did. Beatrice wondered where this new dimension to their relationship had come from, remembering the lingering hug at the station and the comfort of holding her friend, before Ella had even hinted at her possible interest in other women.

Raphaela had surprised herself at how much she still liked Bea. The newly re-found closeness of their friendship had been given an extra layer by her admission the previous night: it was helpful to admit it to someone – especially someone as accepting as Bea – because that made it easier to admit to herself. She was surprised also at how much of a relief it had been – she'd woken up that morning in a surprisingly good mood for once. The opportunity to explore a degree of low-level intimacy with Bea was good too: it helped her feel comfortable with it, because she felt comfortable with Bea. And she knew that Bea would never dream of hurting her, so she felt emboldened to try. She pushed her leg a little more firmly against Bea's, and was pleasantly surprised when Bea didn't move her leg away.

After eating and clearing the table, Susie made moves to start washing up, but Bea told her not to worry, and suggested they go back and sit in comfort. Susie brought the bottle of fancy sparkling fruit juice with her, and Bea and Ella shared out the second half of their bottle of wine.

Raphaela sat back in her corner of the sofa, legs crossed, filled with a curious feeling of pleasure at the relaxed nature of their company. She'd wondered how things would be after so many years, given they'd parted in somewhat awkward circumstances, so was more happy than she'd expected that things were so easy between them all. It boosted her confidence, as she'd been wondering all day whether to say something to Susie as well as Bea. Susie's reaction to Bea's confirmation of her sexuality helped. She ran a finger around the rim of her wineglass quickly. 'Susie? Bea and I had a long chat last night, about various things...there's something I should probably tell you.'

Beatrice glanced at Ella; Ella smiled at her quickly, as if to suggest that she knew what she was doing. Beatrice looked at Susie instead, who was carefully lying back across the small sofa and finding a good spot to rest her head on the arm.

Raphaela took a sip of wine, then rested the glass on her knee. 'I think I know why I haven't been able to settle down. Romantically.'

'Mmm?'

'I'm pretty sure I've been looking in the wrong places.'

Susie snapped her head to one side to stare hard at Ella. 'Meaning...?'

Ella held up a hand. 'It's a bit early days for labels and things, I'm still getting used to being honest about it to myself. But I'm maybe not into boys after all.'

Susie nodded, then looked at Bea for a moment. She noticed that Bea was carefully not reacting, and wondered what exactly Raffy had told her the previous night. Or whether it had just been talking...although she dismissed that thought quickly as highly unlikely. Looking at Raphaela, there was a moment as their eyes met when Susie felt the twinge of an awkward shared memory. She replied carefully. 'And you've been...er...worrying about this for a while?'

Ella glanced at Bea, who seemed to not be picking up on the little glances between her and Susie. 'The conversation last night, we should've had ten years ago.' When she saw Susie raise an eyebrow and relax slightly, she shook her head quickly and Susie frowned.

Bea noticed that, and glanced back and forth between them. 'What?'

Susie sat upright. 'You know all about Raffy's secret crush, then?'

Beatrice noticed Ella stiffen a little. Ella put her wineglass on the floor and turned in her seat to better face Bea, slightly annoyed with Susie for turning the conversation in a direction she felt could've been left alone for the moment. 'Not in any detail. That wasn't the main thing I wanted...'

Bea grinned and rested a hand on Ella's arm. 'Was she there today? I wondered if she would be.' She turned to Susie. 'And you knew all this time?' She felt Ella move her arm away.

Susie shrugged and levered herself off the sofa. 'Sorry, I might have opened a can of worms, there. I shouldn't have sat back down, I'm suddenly bursting for the loo. This happens a lot these days.'

Beatrice watched her friend head across the room. 'Do you know who it was, Susie?'

'I do. But it's up to Raffy to tell you.' She smiled apologetically. 'Sorry, Raffy. Didn't mean to put you on the spot there.'

As Susie made her way carefully upstairs, Beatrice turned to Ella, mirroring her sideways posture: perched forward on the cushion, feet together on the floor, their clasped knees almost meeting in the middle of the space between them. Beatrice rested her hands together in her lap. 'Don't tell me if you don't want to.' She smiled, and hooked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. 'Although I am curious. Are you still in touch, even?'

Ella looked down and ran her hands through her hair. 'We are. And yes, she's around this weekend.' She wiped her palms on her thighs. 'Bea, the main thing I wanted to talk about, both last night and ten years ago, was the girl at netball – and obviously now, the possibility that maybe I'm...you know...maybe it wasn't a one-off. At the time, I promised myself I'd never do anything like that with a girl again. I don't know if I'd even have mentioned this other thing to you back then, and I figured it was old history now.'

Bea opened her hands quickly, in a gesture of acknowledgement. 'Have you ever done anything with another girl, since? Just out of curiosity.'

'No.' Ella glanced at her with a sad smile. 'Doesn't mean I haven't wanted to, though, once or twice.'

'Oh, Ella.' Beatrice reached out and took one of Ella's hands, holding it in both her own. 'I hope you can make peace with yourself, and find someone nice. I'm sure you will, you'd be a real catch.'

Ella shook her head. The comfort she'd felt before was threatened now by Susie's meddling; she didn't like having her hand forced to reveal more than she'd intended. 'Don't say things like that.'

'Why not? It's true.' Bea moved forward slightly, unsure whether to hug her friend, who looked suddenly quite miserable. 'You'd be a great girlfriend, to anyone.'

Ella lifted their clasped hands and opened her mouth to speak, then dropped them into her lap again, and bowed her head. She didn't quite know what to say, and she felt a little ripple of panic at finally revealing herself to Bea after so long. The guilt had been sitting inside for so many years, almost half her life, that she couldn't imagine unburdening herself of it. When Bea rested her forehead against Ella's gently, Ella let her breath out heavily. 'Bea...I...it was...'

Bea squeezed her hand again, as they heard the sound of the flush from upstairs. 'Do you need to get it out before she comes back?'

Ella nodded. 'Probably.' She looked at Bea through her fringe. 'Bea, I'm so sorry. It was me who told Susie about your feelings for her.'

Bea blinked and stared at Ella for a moment, but didn't move. 'Oh.' She kept hold of her friend's hands. 'I didn't expect that.'

'I was jealous.'

'Pardon?' Bea slowly moved her head back a little, and looked puzzled. She glanced at the ceiling where they could hear Susie shuffling about, then back at Ella.

'Of her.' She flicked her eyes up as well, then looked back at Bea. 'Jesus, Bea. Don't be so dim.'

'Oh.' Bea frowned very slightly, and her eyes flashed for a split second with something that may have been anger, then her face cleared in understanding and she stared at Ella. 'As you know, there was never anything in all that.' To Ella's surprise (and relief), she grinned. She let go of Ella's hands, but stroked the back of one of them. 'You should have said, you silly thing. It would've made all our lives a damn sight easier.'

Ella felt like she was losing control of the conversation – she still hated losing control of any kind. 'Seriously? I was the reason your life at school was so miserable, and that's all you can say?' She almost wanted Bea to be angry, because that would have justified the pent-up guilt she'd been carrying around all these years; she was utterly unprepared for Bea to be nice about it.

Bea finally withdrew her hands and sat back slightly. 'Well, first of all, my life at school wasn't that miserable. There were some unpleasant moments, but it was mainly quite happy. Coming back here, being back here this last month, has reminded me of all of the good times. So you didn't make my life miserable. Quite the opposite, things would've been a lot worse if I hadn't had your friendship, and Susie's. And it's no-one's fault but mine that I chose to cut you off and withdraw into myself.' She glanced up with a smile as Susie came back into the living room. 'I've always worried I'm a bit self-obsessed. I've realised recently that I've neglected you both horrendously over the years, and I'm sorry.'

Susie lowered herself onto the sofa. 'You didn't know about Raffy's thing for you, then?'

Both Ella and Bea winced at Susie's casualness. Bea patted Ella's arm. 'Of course not. I was, like I say, so self-absorbed at the time that it never occurred to me that anyone might like me like I...like I liked you.' Bea shifted in the sofa and crossed her legs towards Susie. 'I should probably say, left to my own devices, you'd never have known about that, and it wouldn't have affected anything, and I've had got over it.' She glanced back at Ella, who still looked a bit downcast, and rested her hand on her arm again. Ella didn't move it away this time. 'On the other hand, maybe having my thing for you out in the open let a bit of pressure out of the whole situation, and stopped us all doing something really silly.' Bea stroked Ella's arm reassuringly, and turned to look at her again. 'I genuinely never knew. Thank you for telling me, though.' She nudged Ella's arm gently. 'I'm flattered, actually.'

Susie fiddled with a cushion. 'At one point, I thought you two had actually got it together.'

'What the hell...?' Ella stared at Susie. Bea looked from one to the other.

'That Easter holiday in Upper Sixth you were talking about earlier.' Susie shrugged. 'OK, seeing as we're sharing stuff tonight, full disclosure...' She topped up her glass of fizzy juice and sat back. 'That whole holiday was weird, there was practically no-one around, and there was all this tension in the air about A Levels. And it was handover time for prefects, so it was all very in-your-face that we didn't have long before it was all over and we'd all be off somewhere new...you know, dispersing to the four winds. You were very weird after you'd got back from that netball camp thing.' She pointed at Ella. 'I didn't know if it was stress about schoolwork, or the climax of the games season, or both, or something else entirely. When you split up with Matt shortly afterwards, I thought it must have been that. But just before, on that Good Friday,...well, we all know what happened.' Susie swigged her drink. 'I wasn't expecting you two to be in the chapel, but there you were both rushing down from the organ loft.' She waved her glass at Ella. 'And you had your blouse undone.'

Ella sat back heavily. 'I...I know, I remember. But...'

Beatrice just nodded.

Susie looked at her drink. 'I only remembered it afterwards, like the next day or something. The actual situation was more...urgent, shall we say? But that's when I thought you two were finally getting somewhere.' She grinned sheepishly. 'I was drunk, though, so...' She shrugged.

Ella leant forward and held her head in her hands, elbows on her knees. Beatrice uncrossed her legs. 'You were drunk?'

'Yeah. I'd arranged to meet Grace Smith, the incoming Sacristy Prefect, that night. We set up the chapel for the Easter Day Mass, then talked through admin stuff, all the routine. She knew the ropes mostly, so it became a bit of a general chat.' Susie looked at them both. 'Now, I know, because I know you, that you were both pretty well-behaved at school, but do you remember my reputation?' When both Ella and Bea just nodded and shrugged, Susie went on. 'I was apparently the bad girl. The cool one. I got away with short skirts and earrings and never got caught smoking. And thanks to you two, I was apparently also a player with young girls' hearts.'

Beatrice started to apologise. 'Susie, I'm sorry. It should never have come between us, and shouldn't now...'

'Bea, shut up.' Susie waved a hand. 'Stop being so fucking nice. I should never have turned against you in Fifth Form, and should've stuck by my friends instead of caring more about what people thought of me than what you were going through. We could've sorted it all out then, with a bit of mature discussion. But, maybe we weren't mature enough. I don't know.' She took a breath to refocus. 'Anyway, that night in the sacristy, Grace came on to me and cited my reputation as a player as her justification. And that I was obviously into girls because of that thing with you, Bea.' Susie grinned at the surprised expressions on her friends' faces. 'We'd been drinking the dregs out of the communion wine bottles, which is strong stuff as you know, then I had a little nip or two of vodka handy...it all got out of hand. I turned her down, she put me straight on exactly what most of the school thought was gospel truth about us. I don't think the facts ever got in the way of that story.'

Ella picked up her wineglass. 'You were drinking in the sacristy?'

Susie nodded. 'My bad girl rep was justified in some respects, though not in the ways put about by the rumours. I kept my vodka there, in a flask – hidden in plain sight. Anyway. I got cross and gave her a piece of my mind about the rumours about me and Bea, then also told her I had no idea why either of you two still gave me the time of day, given I was such a useless friend. Fat lot of good it did, because she just buggered off and I know I was always the bad girl in her mind, and that of most of the others. Then just as I was licking my wounds, there was that almighty crash from the chapel. And when I ran out, you two were there with that batty French nun who'd fallen over, and do you know what my main thought was? Bearing in mind I was pretty drunk?' She paused, but the others didn't react. 'It was: holy fuck, that nun's covered in piss and vomit and I want to heave. Quickly followed by utter shame at the fact that I couldn't deal with the sight, while you, Bea – and no offence, but you're not the most wordly of girls – were briskly getting the poor woman into the recovery position like a pro. Given I wanted to study medicine, for God's sake, that's pretty fucking embarrassing.'

'I think you've more than redeemed yourself today, Susie.' Beatrice sat back and crossed her legs again as something occurred to her. 'Is that why you went to sit in the chapel?' When Susie nodded, she added quietly, 'I didn't realise you remembered that day after all this time.'

'I do too,' said Ella. 'Obviously. Mainly because of that interrupted conversation.' When Bea reached out for her, Ella took her hand and for a moment they sat at either end of the sofa holding hands in the space between them. 'Susie, the reason I was trying to talk to Bea that day was because I'd had...an experience. At the netball trials. Girl called Melody, a wing attack...we were practising some moves in some down-time on the first night, just the two of us on court, and...like I said to Bea last night, I'm not sure how exactly, but she kinda crashed into me and after we'd clung onto to each other and managed not to fall on our arses, it...well, we didn't let go.' She sighed. 'We spent every spare moment of those three days together, and it was amazing. Mind-blowing. I mean, I felt things I'd never even imagined and certainly haven't ever felt since. But I felt so guilty about enjoying it so much that I vowed never to do anything like it again. Maybe I knew even then that I'd want to? I did split up with Matt over it, but it was nothing to do with Bea. I needed to talk about it though, and Bea was the person I thought'd be most sympathetic.' She squeezed her friend's hand. 'We went to the organ because it was quiet and private, and when I couldn't think how to broach the subject, I undid my shirt to show Bea the love-bite Melody had given me.' She drew a small circle on the slope of her breast. 'Thought that might help me. Then that Sister collapsed, and well...we all know the rest.' She smiled at the others and let go of Bea's hand gently. 'Been thinking about that night on and off ever since. Wondering if I could've been happier in love if I'd managed to say something, instead of seeing it as a sign that I had to keep it all to myself.'

Susie tutted. 'Do you feel better now? Having told us?'

Ella nodded. 'You're the only two who know. So far. But yes, thanks. It's...a relief, you know? Feels good to say it out loud, to myself as much as anyone else.'

Susie waved her over. 'Give us a hug.' Ella got up and they hugged in the middle of the room. Beatrice also got up and hugged them both, then went to fetch a second bottle of wine from the kitchen.

As she poured a fresh glass for Ella and herself, she asked, 'Susie, have you ever wondered, as a doctor, why Sister Amata collapsed?'

'Bloody good question, Bea. I haven't actually. Let's see: sweating, vomiting, loss of bladder control. She was evidently in a lot of pain. Loss of consciousness eventually, of course.' She stared at the ceiling. 'Anything else?'

'She was muttering to herself. Bits of the Psalms.' Beatrice hovered near the fireplace. 'I suspect she was hallucinating.'

'It's an unusual combo of symptoms.'

Ella sipped her wine. 'Do you know, Bea?' When Bea nodded, biting her lip, she frowned. 'You called her a "stupid bitch". I've always remembered that, because I would never think of you calling anyone that. And you and she were almost like friends.'

'She was a stupid bitch. Especially that night.' Bea glanced at Susie. 'If I tell you she was T1 diabetic...?'

Susie's face cleared. 'Bloody hell, that's some hypo.'

'Hyper, actually. I think it's called DKA? She hadn't taken her insulin for at least twenty-four hours.'

'Diabetic ketoacidosis. Dangerous.' Susie sat back and looked at Bea carefully. 'Did she...?' She frowned. 'Hang on...' She pointed at Bea. 'When you sent me off to find Sister F, I glanced back and saw you doing something to her under her habit...'

'I had one of her insulin pens in my blazer. I don't know how much it helped, though. She was in hospital for a while, then recuperating at various convents for months. She actually ended up at the one I was working at in France, which was near where she was from – not that she had family left, much. She died there in the May.' Bea put the bottle and her glass down on the table and took her glasses off. She covered her face with her hands suddenly. Ella stood up and put her arm round her, but Bea just shook her head and stood quietly for a while. When she looked back up, her eyes were full, though she wasn't actually crying. She leant against Ella a little. 'It was her mind that was the problem at the end. She...she went away on retreat for a few days that last Easter, about the same time you were at netball trials, Ella. Something happened on it, she had some sort of spiritual awakening and came back believing St Clare had spoken to her and she'd been cured. She refused to take her insulin, said she didn't need it...and there we are.' She flapped her arm against her side in a gesture of helplessness. 'That night in the chapel was the result. She continued to maintain that St Clare spoke to her, all the way through until she died. The nurses at the convent in France had to medicate her under sedation, because she'd physically refuse to do it herself. She was a psychiatric patient more than anything, by the end.'

'Bloody hell, Bea.'

Ella squeezed her friend's shoulder. 'How do you know all this, Bea? I know you were her right-hand woman in the library, but..'

'I'm sorry, you're going to think I'm a terrible person...' Bea looked from one to the other and took a very deep breath. 'I...Sister Amata...we were having an affair.'