‘I can’t do it,’ Alice said finally, and she raised her head, chewing on her bottom lip, and there it was: a glimpse of her old self. The Alice threaded with determination; the one who could make a split-second decision – like skipping out on le Bal – and stick with it. ‘I’m going home,’ she declared. Oh no. No, no, no. This wasn’t the thing she wanted Alice to take a stand on.

‘You can’t,’ she said, and it came out more pleadingly than she expected. ‘Jules needs us.’ And she wasn’t sure if that was true, but she could see the resolve in Alice’s face, could hear it in her voice, and she began to panic and wonder, if Alice was going, could she leave too?

‘I don’t know what to do. I really want to come but… I can’t say this in front of Jules, Nina,’ – Alice’s eyes darted around furtively – ‘but it’s so hard. This stuff with Charlotte… I don’t know how Ted will cope.’ She threw her hands up. ‘I can’t go away for the whole weekend!’ She said it in the same way as you might declare you can’t go to the moon, or embark on a solo sail across the Atlantic, not to spend a couple of nights away in Paris with two of your oldest girlfriends.

‘But Alice,’ Nina said. ‘You’ve been saying how much you need this. You deserve this. What was Charlotte’s teacher warning you about? ASD-parent burn out?’

But all the mention of the wise words of Mr Hough did was seem to push Alice over the edge. ‘What was I thinking?’ she cried, her cheeks burning red as she gathered her things, and Nina’s heart began to pound: there was no way she could get through this weekend without Alice.

She hated to say it. She didn’t want to get involved. But equally, she needed Alice to stay. ‘I thought Charlotte was better with Ted?’ she asked awkwardly.

Alice frowned. It felt like battle lines had been revealed and Nina now inadvertently found herself on the wrong side of them; on Ted’s side. She tried to back-pedal but Alice was immediately incensed, ranting, ‘Is that what he’s said? He has no idea! She masks! She masks with Ted because she doesn’t feel comfortable with him!’

‘No, he hasn’t, honestly,’ Nina said, her voice strained, because Ted had in fact tried to draw her in to a number of conversations on this, but she had steadfastly resisted. ‘But look, if that’s how you feel, maybe a weekend alone with the kids will do him good? It’s forty-eight hours. Two nights. You need this, Alice. We all do.’

She saw Alice’s eyes flicker up to her, caught the slight raise of her eyebrow, the unspoken What do you need a break from, Nina? Did she have time to tell Alice now? Perhaps if she told her she wouldn’t feel as sick to her stomach, perhaps the calm she’d felt when she first sat down beside Alice would return? For Nina, this weekend in Paris had come at the perfect time. She needed a break from London, and Flynn, to decide what to do. She needed the restorative effects of two days in the company of her oldest and best friends, the women who knew her best. ‘Listen, Alice, I need to tell…’