‘It’s nice though, too?’ she said, thinking how elated she’d be if Ted took the time to elaborately plan a weekend away for her with her friends. If he noticed her at all.

Nina cocked her head to the side, shrugging. Alice knew it was that sort of thing that put Nina off relationships. She loved her self-sufficiency. She didn’t want to be doted on, or to have someone plan what she was going to do. Neither did Alice, in principle, but she was so body-wearily tired, the idea of anyone doing anything for her held an appeal. Unexpectedly, her thoughts shifted again to Mr Hough. The only person who had recognised, like her, that Charlotte was struggling at school. That she wasn’t being ‘naughty’ or ‘difficult’ or ‘manipulative’, nor was it ‘weird’ that she mainly chose to communicate through Dimples the Unicorn, but there was something else going on. It was thanks to his encouragement that they’d got a diagnosis – for Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – at all. At the reminder of Mr Hough and last night’s messages, her face flooded with heat again.

She wished she could tell Nina. What stopped her? It wasn’t really because she worked with Ted; Alice knew her bond with Nina ran far deeper. Until working together recently, Nina and Ted had barely been in touch, their friendship petering out more than a decade ago. She supposed it was because she knew what she was doing was dangerous. Saying it aloud, even to Nina and Jules, would require her to acknowledge that something was wrong. Her marriage was in trouble. Instead, she sat back in her seat and forced down more of her lukewarm coffee. ‘So good,’ she murmured.

3

Paris, 2003

Nina and Alice were back in the Jardins des Tuileries, on their annual pilgrimage, walking through the park and past the fountains at Place de le Concorde. Jules had got caught up at work and was joining them later. They had maintained their promise to meet every year – although not always in November – and, for obvious reasons, Hôtel de Crillon was no longer their centre point. They wound around the city in circles, a large part of their time spent walking and talking, catching up on each other’s lives and what had happened in the intervening period since they’d seen each other last. The first couple of years they’d stayed in a hostel near the centre, the last couple they had availed themselves of a rarely used flat in the 5th owned by Alice’s godmother. Nina had marvelled, again, at how much easier life was when things like weekends in Paris were granted so easily.

The year after they met, Jules had followed her dream and studied maths at Cambridge. She’d graduated with a first and a heap of job offers to choose from: the first time she’d found herself in demand. She was now on a graduate programme at Austen Miller, a large American bank with headquarters in New York. Nina, still undecided on what she wanted to do and determined not to ask for a penny from Samir, had taken a year out, working in Virgin Megastore to save for university, and eventually, with the encouragement of Jules and Alice via MSN Messenger, working up the courage to apply to study music at the Guildhall. Alice had taken a gap year of a different sort, travelling to Thailand and Australia with her friend Lulu, before starting history of art at St Andrews. She was now on an Erasmus programme, spending a year studying in Paris, sharing a flat in Le Marais with another student. There was already talk of her working at Sotheby’s, via a great-aunt, when she finished her degree. Although Nina loved Alice, she couldn’t help the recurring thought: This isn’t how normal people live.