She shakes her head, even though he doesn’t look up at her. ‘His feet had grown two sizes, his hair slightly changed colour and he’d moved from being obsessed with Hulk to Iron Man. That was two months, Yvonne.’ He gets up from the bed and goes over to the window. ‘Two months,’ he says again, to himself.

She kisses him, cautiously, on the cheek. ‘I’m sorry this is going to be difficult for you.’

But doesn’t he realise that it’s going to be difficult for Emma as well? Just like those two months were. Yvonne remembers going over to the flat one Saturday and seeing Kiama sulking about, angry at his mum for taking away his dad.

‘But Lewis, she’s talked about doing this for years.’

‘Not to me she hasn’t. Cause I would have talked her out of it.’

‘Is that a dig?’

He doesn’t answer straight away, but stares at the window frame, his eyes move along the new crack in the plaster he pointed out the other day. ‘Why didn’t you talk her out of it? Why didn’t you say it was a terrible idea? She would have listened to you. She always listens to you.’

Yvonne sighs, there’s no point talking with him about this, not now, while it’s so raw. Also, what can she say? She’s in the middle of it all and this seemed like the only option that worked for everyone.

She looks at him closely, this man she got after so long wanting. She’s giving up her best friend for him. She’s lying to her family for him. He’s everything to her.

‘Please, come for a walk with me?’ she asks.

Lewis puts his hands over his face. ‘I need some time alone.’

She sighs and leaves.

The party is at the park across the road from Emma’s flat. It’s sunny but chilly, and Yvonne finds she’s not the only one to have misjudged the weather and come without a jacket. She sits on a blanket, along with some of Emma’s friends from the school gates, drinking Asti from plastic flutes while wrapped in tartan blankets trying to keep warm. Each time the conversation trails off Emma pulls another bottle from one of the Aldi bags and busies herself refilling everyone’s drink, but not her own. She seems distant, drifting off, allowing herself to be talked at by these women she always complains about. She catches Yvonne staring at her and smiles. ‘Alright, babe?’

‘Yeah. You?’

Emma moves closer and pulls the blanket onto her bare legs. ‘I’ve hardly spoken to you.’

‘I know, but it must have been full-on recently, getting ready to move abroad.’

‘No, I mean today. Eshal’s been chewing my ear off for the last forty minutes about her mother-in-law,’ she whispers. ‘Honestly, these women bore me to tears.’