Is that actually what happened? When I saw her at Marek’s wedding, Alice had just split up with Seb, the bloke she was about to marry up in Manchester. Was she scrambling for a replacement and I just happened to be there?

I feel light-headed all of a sudden. I have to see Daphne. I just have to.

I put a hand against the wall to steady myself.

‘Ben? You all right?’ Marek is frowning at me. ‘You dropped your cigarette.’

‘Oh, shit. Sorry.’

‘’S’OK …’ He takes a final drag on his and then squashes it under his shoe. ‘Are you still in touch with Daphne?’ he asks suddenly.

I shake my head.

‘I always liked her,’ Marek says simply. ‘She was … nice.’ It’s the first time he’s sounded genuine all morning, and it tears something open inside me. How can I see her? I have to see her.

He opens the door and steps back into the flat. ‘Still. You and Alice got there in the end, eh?’

Chapter Forty-Four

Over the next few hours, the urge to speak to Daphne – to just hear her voice – snowballs into a kind of desperation.

I’m torn between the agonising desire to call her and the awful fear of what she might say when she answers. If she answers: that text message exchange shows she’s clearly in no hurry to speak to me.

In some ways, then, it’s a blessing that I don’t even get the chance to try.

As soon as Marek and I re-enter the living room, we are shuffled straight into our coats and out of the front door. Since Christmas lunch is – as Alice points out – ‘a total ball-ache to cook’, it transpires that we’ve booked a table for six at a posh gastropub on the cusp of Queen’s Park.

Twenty minutes later, we’re there: settling down in the oak-panelled back room in front of a roaring log fire, plates of steaming roast goose with all the trimmings being set down before us. The red wine starts flowing freely, and as midday bleeds into late afternoon, any hope I had of nipping away to phone Daphne fades into the ether.

The conversation over lunch is less a discussion and more a Royal Rumble of one-upmanship. Becky and Dee sweetly tell Alice that she must visit this new restaurant in Soho, because ‘anyone who’s anyone’ has been there – including the two of them. Becky delivers a long monologue about the best nurseries and school catchment areas, and when Dee and Alice offer differing opinions, she politely suggests that her research might be a little fuller because she’s actually expecting.