‘So, it has happened?’ I asked. ‘You and Ben …?’

‘Are no more. And my decision, Mum, so no tears.’

I gave a wry smile. ‘It always is your decision.’

‘I know. But he just wasn’t – you know. A long-term prospect.’

I nodded. Couldn’t possibly comment, obviously, because I’d never met him, but he’d sounded lovely. A lawyer she’d met through a friend. She’d sent me WhatsApp pictures of them, all through the autumn and winter. Snaps of them on skating rinks, wrapped up against the cold in huge coats and scarves, his arms around her; or on the ferry going to work, her head on his shoulder, Manhattan in the background. A nice-looking young man: slim, dark hair, glasses. Geek chic, Helena had said approvingly, when I’d shown her.

‘And it’s not that I don’t think he’s a long-term prospect, it’s that he doesn’t.’

‘Oh.’

‘His parents divorced when he was eleven and it was messy. He doesn’t believe in the institution of marriage. Says vowing fidelity to one another forever is an outdated anachronism, particularly when we’re all going to live to be a hundred. He didn’t see why we couldn’t just live together, go on as we were. Have babies, even. So I thought – why waste my time?’

‘Quite.’

Imo did want to get married – and show me a girl who doesn’t, she’d say caustically, and I’ll show you a liar.

‘So you broke it off?’

‘I did.’

‘But, you miss him?’ I asked tentatively.

She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully but they didn’t mist up. ‘I miss the idea of him. I miss having a boyfriend, and not having to look again, if you know what I mean. And Sunday nights are shit, obviously. But other than that …’ She looked far away, out of the French windows. Then back to me. ‘I won’t miss his conviction. Or his pedantry. Or the way, because he’d read Greats – he was a Rhodes scholar – he always had to make classical allusions.’

‘Sounds like Boris Johnson.’

She threw back her head and let out a great guffaw. ‘If you only knew how different he was.’ She grinned. ‘But yeah, he didn’t wear his learning lightly. Which, of course, is an insecurity. Like wearing glasses when he didn’t need to. I put them on one day. Clear glass. And I couldn’t un-know that, d’you see?’

Oh dear.

‘So actually, I’m looking forward to coming back.’ Suddenly she smiled, her lovely, bright, sunshiny smile, all faint lines on her face vanishing for a moment. ‘Looking forward to escaping the Big Apple and all its scrutiny.’

‘Ah, like me then,’ I said lightly.