The sentence Priya insisted on is the one about Bernadette.

I argued about it for an hour.

My position was that it exposed a sixty-three-year-old woman who had already been through enough.

And Priya’s position, which was right, was: “She left in week three with no explanation.

Four hundred and thirty people have already decided she did something.

You can either say it or you can let them keep the version they have, and the version they have is worse and she will never be able to correct it.”

Bernadette telephoned me that evening, having been told about it by someone, and cried for about four minutes and then said thank you, and I have never felt worse about being thanked for anything.