A whole year has passed since ‘yesterday’, but she looks pretty much exactly the same: young and happy, albeit with a touch more nervous energy about her. The cold air outside seems to have coloured her entire face – her cheeks and the tip of her nose are a soft pastel pink and her big brown eyes are bright and glistening. She’s wearing a black knee-length coat with smart blue jeans and a plain white shirt underneath. Just visible under the collar, winking in the sunlight, is the diamond necklace her parents bought her for her eighteenth.

She leans forward to give me a hug, and when she pulls back, she looks at my chest and laughs. ‘Great to see you’ve made an effort too.’

I follow her gaze downwards. The T-shirt I picked up at random from my bedroom floor turns out to have the slogan PERVERT 69 emblazoned across the front.

‘Shit, sorry … I’ll change.’

Behind her, I can see a little brown car pulling out and disappearing up the road: Daff’s dad, Michael. I’d already met him and Daphne’s mum by this point – they’d come up to uni for a weekend at the end of first year.

‘Isn’t he coming in?’ I ask her.

She shakes her head. ‘No way, I sent him packing. Way too stressful to have the parents meeting each other as well. Maybe he can say hello later when he comes back to pick me up …’

She breaks off and grins over my shoulder. Mum is wandering through from the kitchen behind me, doing a frantic double-waving routine that is bordering on jazz hands and is presumably intended to waft away any meeting-the-mother awkwardness.

‘Hello! Hello! You must be Daphne!’ she beams as she dances towards her.

I’m sure I was absolutely mortified by this the first time round, but now it just makes me love Mum even more. She’s clearly nervous and desperate to make Daff feel welcome: I’ve spent the past few months talking about her pretty much non-stop, so Mum knows how big a deal this is.

‘Hello! Hi! Yes! You must be Rosie!’ Daff is doing the jazz hands back at her now, making them look like some kind of 1920s musical hall double act. Despite everything, I can feel a bubble of laughter rising to bursting point in my chest. I start doing the jazz hands too, and suddenly all three of us are laughing together.

‘It’s so lovely to finally meet you,’ Daff says, sticking out her hand for Mum to shake. Mum looks at it for a second, clearly thinks about taking it, then swats it away and pulls her in for a hug.

‘Sorry, sorry, embarrassing mother,’ she says, squeezing her tightly. And as Daff squeezes back, she shoots me a sideways glance that is pure excitement and happiness.

‘Anyway,’ Mum says, letting go of her, ‘come on through!’

Chapter Fifteen