It’s fine for guys in their twenties, who were raised on Instagram and Love Island; they don’t know any different. But these mid-thirties blokes who suddenly become protein-guzzlers – they’re old enough to remember the halcyon pre-David Beckham days, when young men were all pigeon-chested and Twiglet-armed. They’re selling the rest of us out, I reckon.

I order a Guinness just to piss Harv off.

We sit down at a table by the window, him sipping his vodka and tonic and me slurping my black lard. Another office Christmas party comes barrelling through the doors, all wearing badly torn cracker hats.

‘You going to your parents’ tomorrow, then?’ I ask Harv.

He nods. ‘My sister’s giving me a lift to Suffolk first thing. Are you round at your …’ He flinches and shakes his head. ‘Sorry, man. Wasn’t thinking.’

‘No, no, don’t worry.’

It’s been two years now, and I still forget myself from time to time. I’ll read some book or see something on TV and think, oh, Mum would like this, and then crumple as the realisation gut-punches me.

I wonder if that ever goes away. Probably not.

‘Are Daff’s lot coming to you, then?’ Harv asks.

‘Yep. I’m supposed to be doing the tree and the presents right now, but y’know …’ I hold up my pint and take a big sip.

‘Where is Daff?’

‘She’s at a work thing. I thought she wanted me to come, actually, but maybe not. She’s always on at me to meet new people.’

‘But you hate new people.’

‘Exactly.’

We both laugh. It feels comforting to fall back into our old groove: me as the grumpy, shy one, Harv as the buoyant extrovert. It’s a dynamic that’s been in play since we first met at uni. Occasionally I worry that it’s become a crutch; a performance we put on for each other because we don’t have anything else to talk about. I wonder whether if we met today – stripped of all our shared memories and in-jokes – we’d have anything in common at all. But right now it feels nice to slip back into that tried-and-tested role play – like pulling on an old jumper or something.

Harv starts rambling on about work – he does something in social media, though I’ve never been exactly sure what – and I suddenly want to tell him everything. I want to spill my guts about Daphne and Mum and the messages from Alice, and how I’m starting to feel like my whole life has frozen on screen and I’ve no idea which combination of keys will reboot it. But I don’t know how to even start that conversation. I’ve known Harv fifteen years – he was my best man, for God’s sake – but we never really talk about stuff like that. I don’t think we ever did.