‘Yes. Quite a lot, as I understood it. He’s amazed Steve’s being so patient about it.’

‘So that’s why we can’t afford a bloody holiday!’ Jackie fumed. ‘He told me things were too tight this year! Silly sod.’ There was affection in her voice, though. Even a touch of pride that he’d shown so much generosity, though of course, in business terms it was crazy. ‘But Suzi, how can you be so sure he’ll leave Steph? How many women have waited their lives out for some married shit – and when he finally does leave, he goes off with somebody else? I’ve seen it time and time again.’

‘But David isn’t a shit. That’s the difference.’

‘Oh, Suze, sweetie; if he isn’t a shit, he won’t leave her. Look, come and have a hug.’

Like most men’s women, Suze wasn’t the huggy type, Jackie knew. Still, she let herself be enveloped in Jackie’s pneumatic embrace and burst into operatic tears.

‘Oh God, Jack, you mean he’s just stringing me along?’

‘What has he actually said?’

‘Just that he enjoys my company and loves it that I don’t criticize him all the time like his wife does.’

‘No actual mention of leaving her, though?’

The tempest of Suzi’s tears redoubled until she had deep runnels of mascara blackening her face. Jackie delved into her bag for a tissue, spat on it and wiped Suzi’s cheeks clean. It was a slender enough premise to build a fantasy on and Jackie suspected it was just that. Though obviously she wasn’t going to say so.

‘OK, you haven’t asked my advice, I know, but I’m going to give it to you anyway. You’ve got to get on with life, Suze. It’s like anything. It’s more likely to happen if you live your life the way you always do. That was what attracted him in the first place.’ Jackie thought for a moment. ‘You should find something to do with yourself.’ She didn’t add ‘instead of hanging about in bars’, but it was implicit in her tone.

‘What you mean, a hobby?’ was the withering reply. ‘Learn French? Join a choir? Walk bloody dogs like Janine?’

‘Maybe you could help Guillaume behind the bar?’

‘Rather than hanging round embarrassingly in front of it?’

‘Come on, have another hug. It’ll work out. These things do.’

Suzi reluctantly submitted to her embrace. Jackie was surprised at how thin and bony she seemed, despite the boobs that were so often on display. Fragile, almost. Not a word she would ever have applied to Suzi.

‘Yeah, usually with the other woman losing out.’

Jackie thought of the predatory bitch who’d walked off with her first husband and begged to differ. She shouldn’t feel too sorry for Suze. She was obviously getting soft in her old age.