They walked a little further in silence, under the next bridge and towards the Hayward Gallery, a space Alice loved. She stopped, jamming her hands in her pockets. ‘In some ways, I fucked up too… Not being honest about what matters to me, or what’s going on, or… Nina. I hate your coffee. I’m sorry. I know you’ve won awards for it but all I want is a decent cup of tea, or the branded one in a jar I’m used to. That probably makes me basic, but honestly… I don’t even know what that means! And my children…’ Jules’s betrayal over the invoice emboldened her to lay her feelings bare. ‘I feel like I can’t mention them around you, because Jules, you’ll be offended or Nina, you’ll be disinterested and…’ She saw her breath in the cold air. ‘And… also, when we were in Paris, I was texting Nate. And I didn’t tell you both. So, I had something going on too. And, if I’m being really honest…’ She looked up to the sky. Dusk was falling on the South Bank and strings of bulbs lined the Thames. ‘At some level I always knew you and Ted had feelings for each other, Nina, but I tried to pretend to myself it wasn’t a big deal. I knew you’d fancied each other when we met, it was obvious, but then it seemed to fizzle out and I suppose I hoped it was because he’d fallen in love with me. I thought he’d chosen me and the insecure part of me was just so amazed that he’d choose me over you that I didn’t stop to think whether that was fair… but maybe, now, looking back, maybe it wasn’t.’ Her friends stared at her, open-mouthed.

‘He did choose you, Alice, he loved you. The thing with me was him panicking. Pre-wedding nerves.’ Nina reached her hands out to Alice. ‘But yes, I had remained embarrassingly in love with him. I did my best to forget about him. As you know, I was half-cut most of the time,’ she smiled wryly. ‘And we were friends. Good friends. That was it, until that day before.’

‘Did you know about them?’ Alice asked Jules.

Jules nodded ruefully. ‘Nina wanted to tell you, Alice, straight after the wedding, but I’d noticed you swapping your full champagne glasses with Ted’s empty ones. I guessed you were pregnant, so I told her not to.’

Alice chewed on her lip. Jules put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I wanted to protect you.’

Alice looked skywards, exhaling, as gulls swooped against the clouds. ‘We were already married.’ She shook her head as the other two gasped. ‘We married the week before, officially, in London. It’s a pain marrying abroad. But we didn’t tell anyone. We didn’t want to spoil the romance.’ She sneered at romance.

‘Fuck,’ was all Nina said. She’d slept with her best friend’s husband. She felt the colour drain from her face. Even a few months ago, in the patisserie, when Ted had the chance to confess all, he hadn’t taken it, omitting this important detail. Was it because he always wanted people to see the best in him? Shame? Arrogance? Was it, as she suspected, knowing Ted, that he always wanted to do that right thing but just couldn’t quite manage it? She couldn’t say. All she knew was that she didn’t want her closest relationships to have omissions at their heart. She knew it was now or never. ‘There’s something else,’ she said.