“You’ve actually got good ones. It’s just that you haven’t marked them off, because you’ve been far too busy flirting with Magnus and staring at him.”

I take a buying-time sip of my beer. “Don’t be silly.”

“Oh, really? Am I silly? Explain this, then.” She brandishes one of my cards. “You had a line well before that woman over there.”

“What?” I grab the card back and groan. “Shit.”

She smiles smugly but then leans forward. “Is there something going on? You two look really cosy.”

“Nothing is going on apart from the fact that I’ve made friends with him,” I say, the lie almost convincing me.

“Well, he has a lot of friends,” she says. “But I’ve never seen him look like that with any of them.”

“What do you mean?” I ask uneasily, a flock of baby birds stirring in my stomach.

She watches Mags. “He’s always the centre of attention in any room. He’s been that way since uni. He just has something about him that draws the eyes and lights up a place.”

“It’s called charisma, and he abuses it shamelessly,” I say wryly.

“Oh, of course,” she says, waving a cavalier hand. “But he never really engages with the men he’s with. I’ve seen him with loads of them over the years, but I’ve never seen him laugh like he does with you.”

“That’s the lack of sex,” I say. It’s not truthful, but in a sense, it is. We’ve been like this from the beginning. “We’re friends,” I say again in a voice that warns her to drop it.

And because she loves me, she does, but not before saying quietly, “Well, that’s just a crying shame.”

The game starts again, and after a while, my headache makes it difficult to concentrate on my cards. I take my tablets surreptitiously, and then, making the excuse that Mags is so woeful he needs help, I lean into him and offer helpful advice that makes him shake with laughter and gives me a strange feeling in my belly.

The afternoon passes quickly with a great deal of laughter and booze as we discover that Mags is as competitive as Lennie. Chris and I finally give up on our cards and sit together watching the pair of them. Mags has taken on another three cards and is making his way through them with effortless aplomb as if this eminent QC plays bingo every day of the week. He occasionally hesitates as the colloquial bingo calls confuse him and I lean in, helping him and sometimes hindering.

“This is a good day,” Chris says, putting down his pint and hugging me affectionately. “We miss you, you know.”

I smile at him. “I’m only over the Channel. You can come at any time.”

“I know, but I like this. I like seeing Mags like this too.”

“How?”