‘Sorry, Cath, I’m not quite sure what’s going on.’

‘Yeah. Ditto.’

‘Alright. Let’s wind back a bit. You’ve totally lost me. Am I meant to know about some sort of issue or problem?’

‘You tell me,’ Cath says, shrugging and leaning back in her chair. ‘I’ve not been able to get any sense out of you since before Christmas.’

I blink a few times, unsure quite what to say. ‘Cath, I don’t think I’ve even spoken to you since before Christmas.’

‘Yeah. Exactly,’ Cath replies.

‘I mean, we’ve had a lot going on. What with Christmas itself, Nan dying, work. We quite often go a few days without talking and it’s never caused an issue before.’

‘No, but then again you’ve never deliberately ignored my messages before.’

My eyes and mouth widen. ‘Sorry, what? I haven’t ignored anything, Cath. I’ve not heard hide nor hair from you since Brighton. What am I supposed to have done?’

Cath pulls her mobile phone out of her handbag, unlocks it, taps the screen a few times then hands it to me. I can see, quite clearly, a series of messages on the screen from her to me.

‘Cath, this is the first time I’ve seen any of those. Look,’ I say, taking my own phone out and bringing up the message thread. ‘I didn’t receive any of those.’

‘Well I sent them. You can see them here. You didn’t even reply when I said Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.’

‘Is that why you came here today?’ I ask her. ‘Because you thought I was ignoring you?’

Cath’s face drops. ‘No, Grace. I came here to pay my respects to your Nan and to give my best wishes to your grieving family. For fuck’s sake, what is wrong with you?’

‘I’m sick of being accused of things I haven’t done, that’s what. I didn’t get any messages, alright? Why the hell would I ignore you?’

Cath looks at me and moves her jaw a little, as if in consideration, before tapping her screen a few times, then looking back at me.

‘What?’ I ask.

‘Has it come through?’

‘Has what come through?’

‘The message I just sent you. Show me.’

I sigh in disbelief, then show Cath my phone.

‘See? Nothing. There’s obviously some sort of problem with the phones. Now, do I get an apology or what?’

Cath glances at me out of the corner of her eye as she navigates out of my Messages app and into my phone’s settings. I can’t quite see what she’s doing, but a few seconds later her face turns white and she moves her eyes slowly up to meet mine.

‘What? What is it?’ I ask.

‘You blocked me,’ she says, her voice almost a whisper.

‘What? No I didn’t. Give me that.’

I snatch my phone back and look at the screen. There, bright as day, is a full list of all the phone numbers I’ve ever blocked. It’s just the one. It’s Cath’s.