‘When we had plenty of time to ourselves,’ Jules said. ‘I didn’t come to Paris to go to the cinema,’ she scoffed, and to Alice’s surprise Nina, easy-going-c’est-la-vie-Nina, seemed affronted.

‘You’d have to turn your phone off too,’ Nina said pointedly, and Jules rolled her eyes and shook her head in a typical you don’t understand kind of way.

Alice felt uneasy; it was tension like this she had come away to avoid. She felt obligated to defuse it, just like she did at home.

‘Sorry, Neen,’ she said, in her calmest smoothing-things-over voice, ‘but I actually made us a dinner reservation for tonight. I felt bad about you organising everything and I wanted to do something helpful…’ This wasn’t strictly true, it was more Nina’s insistence that they didn’t book anything, and they just see where Paris takes them that had compelled her to book dinner. She didn’t want to risk wandering around at 10 p.m. trying to find somewhere on a Friday night in Paris with space for them. She wasn’t sure she could last past 10 p.m. without falling asleep. ‘At Georges?’ she added in a hopeful tone. It was selfish too; Alice couldn’t come to Paris and not go to the restaurant at the top of the Georges Pompidou centre.

‘Nice,’ Jules said approvingly and Nina muttered a muted, ‘Okay, thanks.’ The tension stilled and cooled and Nina shot a conciliatory smile in Jules’s direction, who, to Alice’s surprise, granted one back.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jules said, acknowledging the phone in her hands. ‘I… I can’t seem to help it.’

They all stopped then, in the Jardin des Tuileries, where groups of people sat on the chairs around the lake, sunglasses on, chatter rising like the warmth of the sun on the water’s surface. The gardens were coming into bloom, bursts of colour contrasting with the lush green grass.

‘It’s a distraction,’ she said softly, and Alice and Nina nodded, understanding, their arms around her. They knew that was a lot for Jules to say. ‘But I should take a break.’ She slipped her phone into her leather tote. ‘My battery’s about to die anyway.’

They continued to walk on, in step with each other, commenting on shops and things that had changed since they’d been here last: There’s more dogs, right? – Oh, I used to love that restaurant! Remember the maggot in your oyster? And how annoyed the waiter was when you complained!

The whole time Alice was participating, but her own thoughts ran in tandem: Should she reply to Mr Hough? It felt so loaded. Or did it, was she reading too much into it? She should say thank you, shouldn’t she, at least? She couldn’t decide and her thoughts see-sawed as they walked until they reached the spot they knew so well. The two huge fountains at Place de la Concorde, the grandeur of Hôtel de Crillon behind them. Standing before the beautiful hotel where they’d met, in the city that made them, Alice felt for the first time that her extensive preparations to ensure she could come – including the negotiations with Dimples the Unicorn – seemed worth it. Jules’s phone stayed in her bag, and the nervous look on Nina’s face shifted properly for the first time since they’d arrived. They linked arms, like a chain, and smiled.