‘Yes. I don’t really care about the job, I can get another job, but the humiliation of Art and Suzy – I just can’t begin to process it.’

‘Well, it is annoying.’

‘Annoying?’

My own voice rises then and Kelly’s eyes fill with tears. FINALLY, the appropriate response! I hate to see her cry but I’m also glad she’s crying. We can cry together about this. For weeks. Months!

She stops crying and wipes her eyes dry. I await her succour.

Eventually, she speaks. ‘Look, Jenny, I know you’re having a hard time. And I wanted to meet you to talk about it. But we’ve been together almost an hour and you haven’t asked me one question about me. Not one. You haven’t apologised for leaving my teenage son alone on the street. I thought I could trust you. You cannot be trusted.’

I halt my inner celebration. ‘Er, I’m the one with the catastrophe right now, Kelly.’

She nods and looks at her beer bottle. ‘So I guess I should tell you that Paul sent Sonny a message via his mum’s Facebook and Sonny got all excited and replied and now he’s just ghosting him again, and I could fucking kick myself for not monitoring it all more closely. And it looks like Esther is going to sell the house soon because her kids are pressuring her to, and there’s no way I’ll be able to find anywhere in London as cheap so I’m looking at where else in the UK to live.’

‘Don’t even talk to me about money! No one could be more worried about money than me right now.’

Kelly slams her beer bottle down. I jump.

‘You own your own house!’

‘Which I can’t afford any more!’

‘You have A NICE LIFE with few responsibilities. You need to grow up and take responsibility for things.’

I whisper-hiss: ‘Don’t you dare “as a mother” me! I have a mortgage! That’s as bad as a child!’

‘So sell it and live somewhere cheaper. You have options. My tax credits are fucked. I’ll be uprooting Sonny while he’s doing his GCSEs. I might not get another job I like as much that’s also flexible around school hours.’

‘He won’t even be at school for that much longer. He’s practically an adult. Time he started fending for himself, in all honesty.’

Kelly sits mouth-breathing for a moment. It’s not a good look, even for her. Then she says, calmly, almost gently: ‘Jenny, can I ask you a question?’

‘Of course. Ask me anything you want. I have many more details to share.’

Kelly moves her head almost imperceptibly to the side and back again. She says: ‘Do you think we would be friends if that day hadn’t happened, with Sonny on the dual carriageway?’

‘What do you mean?’