He’s bereft. ‘She’s leaving me, Fern.’

‘Yeah. Why didn’t you stay and talk to her?’

He scratches his forehead awkwardly. ‘I didn’t want to hear her say goodbye,’ he says and his voice is full of pain.

‘I’m sorry.’ I want to put my arms around him to comfort him, but the dog’s watching me. ‘Er … what are you going to do about the dog?’

‘Poor Duncan. She lavished her love on him, made him feel special, the luckiest dog on earth, and now she doesn’t want him. He’ll be cut up by this.’ His eyes film with tears. ‘Gigi was – is – the most exciting woman I’ve ever met. You know that charge you get when you see a person and all you can think about is them, and when you’re not with them you’re just wasting time until you can see them again?’

‘Yes!’

‘I had all that and now I’ve lost it.’

‘David—’

‘Don’t tell me that there’s still a chance. I hate that.’

‘I wasn’t going to.’ I was going to tell him he’d find someone else, but I change my mind. It’s not what he wants to hear. While he’s still in love with her I know there’s no hope for me.

Then Dinah turns up. She lets out a little cry and points her finger at David’s chair. ‘What’s that?’

‘David’s dog. Gigi brought it,’ I tell her, lowering my voice.

David rests his head in his hands. ‘She’s left me.’

All Dinah says in response to this bombshell is: ‘Interesting.’

He looks up irritably. ‘What’s that supposed to mean, “interesting”? What’s interesting about it?’

‘Poor you! But you see, she’s not interested in hurting you. If she wanted to hurt you she’d keep the dog, no? Don’t blame yourself. Some situations, there’s nothing you can do to change it.’

The dog has inched out from beneath David’s chair and it regards us with an innocent expression, as though he’s got nothing to do with it but he’s somehow sliding forward through no fault of his own. I get behind Dinah.

‘What make of dog is it supposed to be?’ she asks David suspiciously.

‘It’s got a bit of golden retriever in it,’ he says vaguely, taking one of his light boxes off the shelf.

‘Which bit, the eyebrows?’

I look at the light box in his hand. I wonder what he’s going to do now. I wonder if the whole idea of being compatible because of a star sign was just a way of persuading himself that he and Gigi were meant to be.