Simon glances back at me, and nods. In the passenger seat next to him, his wife, my aunt Chrissie, sits with the wreath of lilies perched carefully on her lap. And beside me in the back of the car, Daff reaches across and squeezes my hand, giving me a tearful smile. Our fingers interlock, and our wedding rings clink gently against one another. Mine has been missing from my finger over these past few days, since I was revisiting moments when Daff and I weren’t yet married. I never even noticed it was gone. It seems strange that I’ve only realised it now.

It’s even stranger to think that I’m here with her now, when only last night I was in Paris, in Alice’s flat. What would I have done, I wonder, if my time hadn’t run out? If the clock hadn’t reached one minute to midnight?

I honestly don’t know.

I stare out of the car window at the trees and houses whizzing by. It was on the Eurostar back from Paris that I decided I would ask Daphne to marry me. The thought popped into my head totally at random, and at first it seemed crass and embarrassing: a knee-jerk response to the guilt I felt over sleeping with Alice. An over-the-top way of making amends for what I’d done. But the more I thought about it, the more I knew that it wasn’t any of those things. I was in love with Daff. That was the only fact in my life I was really sure of. The idea of losing her was genuinely terrifying; what had happened with Alice had only served to make me realise that.

It was as if all my worries about marriage and what it had done to my parents had suddenly dissolved, because I knew now for absolute certain that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Daphne. But to come to that realisation, I’d had to do something that could easily break us apart for good if she ever found out about it. So I quickly came to the conclusion that she never, ever would.

I’d slunk out of Alice’s flat early on Boxing Day morning, refusing her offer of breakfast with a few grunted monosyllables. I knew how shitty it was – how rude I was being – but I couldn’t help it. I felt like I was suffocating in there; I needed to get outside and clear my head.

Three days later, when I’d decided to go back to London early, I messaged Alice to tell her I was sorry; that I was heading home, and maybe I’d see her soon. She never replied.