‘Saw your latest masterpiece on telly last night, mate,’ Phil laughs, putting on a jokey All-American accent. ‘McCain Oven Chips: for a happy, healthy family!’

Marek smiles back tightly, and I get the impression that Alice v Becky won’t be the only passive-aggressive grudge match on today’s docket.

‘No, fair play, not exactly Oscar-winning fodder,’ he says with his jaw clenched. ‘Still, I got a fucking good pay cheque for it, which I can use to fund something a little more creatively nourishing, if you know what I mean. That’s how it works in this industry,’ he adds snootily. ‘One for them, one for you.’

‘It’s been more like twenty for them, none for you, hasn’t it, mate?’ Phil chuckles, to snickering laughter from Becky and Alice.

Marek soaks up their giggles with apparent good humour, and answers with a question of his own. ‘And how’s the fascinating world of accountancy then, Philip? Sitting behind a desk tapping away at your calculator: sounds fucking mind-blowing.’

Phil grins and punches Marek’s shoulder. ‘Whatever, mate.’

Becky squeezes Dee’s arm. ‘Oh, I love it when the boys go all alpha.’

There’s more laughter at this – from ‘the boys’, too – and I see Marek smirk as he reaches for a vol-au-vent.

It’s weird, really, how little he’s changed since uni. That spark and arrogance he had at nineteen are still very much there, despite the fact that he clearly hasn’t lived up to his own – and everyone else’s – expectations. At York, the one thing we all knew for certain was that Marek would go on to be a superstar. The next Tarantino, the next Shane Meadows – at the very least, the next Guy Ritchie. The next someone, anyway.

After he graduated, though, nothing seemed to quite fall into place. Film school turned out to be a dead end, so he went into advertising. It was supposed to be a stopgap: a way to earn a bit of cash to fund his own independent movies. As the years went by, he clung to this idea tightly, retaining the dress sense and swagger of a critically acclaimed auteur when he was actually spending most of his time directing fast-food commercials. At his wedding, back in 2020, he was quick to tell me he was ‘making shitloads’ doing this kind of work, but I could tell that his guard was up. He was spiky and defensive about it; like he suspected I might be about to remind him of our student days, when he used to swan into pubs drunkenly bellowing that Bill Hicks line: ‘If anyone here is in advertising or marketing … kill yourself.’

I guess none of us turned out how we thought we would at nineteen. We all made mistakes and concessions and wrong turnings.