‘I still have so much of your stuff in my storage unit,’ Yvonne says, desperate to get off the subject of Lewis before it even starts. ‘You said you were going to move it somewhere else.’

‘I don’t have time for that,’ she waves a hand. ‘Chuck it.’

‘No. I can’t do that. It’s your photos, your books and your weird collection of plant postcards.’

‘Oh my botanical postcards, keep those, please, they’ll be worth money one day.’

Julie comes back with the kids, Kiama and a gaggle of awkwardly sized eight-year-old boys, loud and demanding. They throw themselves on the blanket and immediately start to grab at the food, like they’ve never eaten.

‘Hello,’ Julie says, as she sits down, in Emma’s place, next to Yvonne. ‘I’m Kiama’s nan. Though, we have met before, haven’t we? At one of Kiama’s birthday parties?’

‘Yes.’ She takes the woman’s hand cautiously.

‘I didn’t realise that you and Emma went to the same university. She was telling me the other evening how long you’ve been friends for. You probably know my son as well then, don’t you?’

Yvonne’s mouth falls open. ‘Kiama’s dad? No, not really.’

Julie squints at her, ‘Didn’t you come to my house once? For a barbecue?’

‘Erm, maybe, yes, but that would have been with Emma. I don’t know Lewis, not really.’ She’s lying. This is awful.

‘He’s got so many friends, I can’t keep up. But every year I do the barbecue and all my sons can invite whoever they want. Sorry, can you grab me that bottle of water, please?’

Yvonne reaches over and fills up Julie’s plastic flute.

‘Pills and Asti is a bad mix,’ she says as she takes two tablets. ‘Painkillers. I’ve got an ache starting up in my back. That’ll teach me to go on the slides, won’t it?’ she laughs.

It feels deceitful, listening as Julie feigns good health. Especially as Yvonne knows how many times Lewis has driven her to the hospital these last few months. Yet she looks well, far from the frail, sickly woman Yvonne often pictures. Though she never gave much thought to meeting Julie or any of Lewis’s family, how could she, when she was always the secret? How would it work? That one day she’d walk back into that house in Harrow in her new role as Lewis’s girlfriend. Lewis had said it would matter very little, but she’s not so sure.

‘Will you go out and visit them?’ Julie asks.

‘In Kenya?’

‘Yes.’ She has the same big earnest eyes as Kiama.

‘I haven’t thought much about it.’

Kiama kicks her drink over as he tries to reach some crisps. ‘Sorry, Nana.’