‘Because I feel…’ I couldn’t find the correct word. ‘It’s over with Luke. And it’s over fully, properly. The way it should be.’

A sea of baffled faces was watching and suddenly I had the perfect analogy. ‘The door on my spare room, the crappy lock never fully catches, not even when I slam it. It almost closes, it seems closed, but I’m always tense, because I know it’ll slip free.’

The same five faces were fixed on me, one or two looking somewhat concerned.

‘But once in a blue moon,’ I said, ‘the right thing happens! The click.’ I clicked my fingers to demonstrate. ‘Click!’ I repeated. ‘The lock does what it’s supposed to—it catches and it’s genuinely closed. Do you get me? Click!’

Helen glanced at Claire. ‘You restrain her and I’ll ring the ambulance.’

In a gentle voice, Anna asked, ‘What exactly has “clicked”?’

‘Luke and I ended a long time ago, but it never felt…’ I sought the right word. ‘Real? Done? Now it is. Click!’

‘Uh-oh,’ Margaret declared, literally rolling up her sleeves. ‘I know what’s going on here.’

She didn’t often make those sorts of pronouncements, so I took notice.

‘All of us, at some stage, we’ve had a tooth out?’ she said, ‘For a while your mouth doesn’t hurt and secretly you’re proud of your high pain threshold. But it’s only because the anaesthetic hasn’t worn off.’ She shrugged. ‘Then it does and you’re crying on the couch, eating cloves like they’re M&M’s. Sorry, Rachel.’

‘Bang on,’ Claire said. ‘Rachel, you’re high, literally high, on all that Costello man-lurve.’

‘Exactly this.’ Margaret was earnest. ‘The phenomenon has been well documented. The Costello man-lurve has generated oodles of dopamine in you.’

‘I adore Angelo,’ Anna stated, seemingly apropos of nothing. ‘But I wouldn’t say no to a night of Costello man-lurve.’

‘And there,’ Mum muttered, ‘I’d have to agree with you. ’Tisn’t many a woman who’d turn down a night of Costello man-love.’

‘Lurve.’ Helen corrected, then with savage scorn: ‘I’d turn it down. State of him.’

‘Tell me.’ I was interested, almost amused.

‘His hair is too long, his jeans are still too tight. He’s preposterous.’

‘Ahem-hem.’ Margaret coughed apologetically. ‘In the interests of balance, I always liked Luke, but I didn’t fancy him.’ Quickly she added, ‘I don’t think he’s preposterous either. Just…not for me.’

‘In all seriousness,’ Claire said. ‘You need to be careful, Rachel. You’re going to crash and it won’t be pretty.’

Suddenly I was very nervous.

‘But we’ll rally round you,’ Claire said. ‘Won’t we?’

‘Of course!’ From Margaret.

‘I’m not much of a rally-er,’ Helen said. ‘But I’m willing to try.’

Mum gripped my arm. ‘You’d be better off without her.’