As James had done earlier, on the other side of the planet, she thought back to their dinner together in Edinburgh; that air of sentimentality and easy disclosure that came with booze, something they’d both grasped for eagerly after the repressed sorrows of the day. The wine and the headrush and the swirling emotion had lent her a series of revelations – that family was more important than anything, that a brother and sister should be able to tell each other anything – which in her head were no less true just because she was pissed while saying them. Quite the opposite. In vino veritas. ‘Which Famous Five book is that in?’ James had asked, and she squeaked with laughter and they got a look from the buttoned-up couple two tables along, just like in old times.

When they got back to the hotel, Mum was long asleep, and Sal suggested a nightcap, a last one in the bar. She was surprised at how much of a relief it was when James agreed: she didn’t want to be on her own, and that was a newish feeling. Specifically, she wanted to be with James. ‘Seriously, we should be messaging every day,’ she said once more, waving at James’s iPhone, which was out on the table. There were often notifications, from WhatsApp or YouTube, the unending clamour of the portals Michaela used, and it was becoming part of his job now to react to those. But what he really wanted, of course, was a message from Michaela herself. That was something which, after more than a year, still made him thrum with anticipation, as if he was at school again and being smiled at by a girl in the playground. ‘I mean, why not? Isn’t that why we even have these things?’

‘I just always worry – no, I’ll get these – I always worry you’re busy,’ said James. ‘With your twelve different jobs. Or you’re asleep …’

‘I only sleep four hours a night.’

‘… or just that I don’t have all that much that would be exciting to tell you, I suppose.’

‘What? Apart from having an amazing new girlfriend? Apart from having lost all this weight and got into the running?’

‘Thanks to her,’ said James. Sal swallowed. She was going to have to get used to Michaela, she guessed. Dad’s wake had been a terrible place to meet somebody for the first time, obviously. Michaela had just been trying over-hard, probably; surely she didn’t always speak that loudly, as if into a gale-force wind, and tell anecdotes about James with such a complacent air of familiarity, as if she had known him for far longer than his own family. Yes. They’d get to know each other properly at Sal’s wedding, she expected.