‘Then leave,’ I said, catching hold of his hand and forcing him to look at me. ‘Go back to trying to build your own business. You’ll be much happier and don’t worry about money,’ I laughed self-consciously, ‘because—’

‘No, I won’t give her the satisfaction of walking out, but I will increase my efforts to pick up my own clients. I know!’ he said, grabbing the laptop. ‘Let’s knock up a website! That way more people will find out about me.’

‘Good idea,’ I said, not mentioning that when I’d suggested that five months ago he’d said that websites were ‘old hat’ and nobody looks at them any more.

For the rest of the night, we sat together on the sofa building a simple site and scrolling through pictures of Harvey looking manly and muscular to persuade people that no one knew more about becoming the body beautiful than my boyfriend. It had been quite fun in the end; he did have a beautiful body and he knew just how to hold it against me.

On Wednesday evening, I’d only been talking to Evie on the phone for a couple of minutes when Harvey arrived home. She’d told me that she’d sent off for some information about fostering from social services that afternoon and was full of it. I got up from the sofa and walked over to him in the kitchen, watching him to try to gauge his mood. His face gave nothing away and I kissed his cheek.

‘Who is it?’ he asked, twisting my hand so he could read the screen.

‘Evie,’ I whispered.

He rolled his eyes.

‘They’re crying out for foster parents!’ Evie said, sounding happier than I’d heard her for ages. ‘I’m so glad we’re doing this.’

I was still concerned that she was keeping Darren in the dark but this was her life, not mine. She’d been through enough and I would support her whatever she decided to do.

‘Just tell Darren what you’ve told me,’ I said, turning my back on Harvey, determined that he wasn’t going to make me feel guilty for talking to my own sister tonight.

He started banging about in the kitchen and I moved as far away as I could to the window.

‘Let him know that you really want to go through with this,’ I continued.

‘Go through with what?’ Harvey looked up.

‘Tell you later,’ I said, unwilling to get into a three-way conversation.

‘I will, I will,’ Evie said vaguely. ‘But I want to take the first steps on my own. I think once I’ve got that far, he’ll see how much it means to me.’

‘I’m sure he will,’ I said, although secretly I wasn’t convinced. My heart tweaked for them both. Darren would have made a good dad; it was so sad that they were at loggerheads.