Kerry is still smiling at me. An evening like this, where she’s not working, and I’m not studying, and we’re both a bit merry, is so rare. If I let this go, we might even end up in bed for the first time in months. (My problem, not hers. The only reason I haven’t asked Wilcox for Viagra is because he would never let me forget it.)

‘I am tired, Kerry. You’re right.’

She takes a sip of her wine. ‘Look, you’ll be OK. We’ve always been here for each other. Right from the first day we met.’

I close my eyes and see it so clearly: my mother dragging me into the Smiths’ garden, Kerry smiling, leading me towards the table, where a pile of chocolate biscuits was melting in the sun.

Within seconds, her sister had turned a hose on us both, soaking us from head to toe. ‘Bloody Marilyn.’

Kerry smiles. ‘But we dried each other off and we got extra Wagon Wheels. We always work things out. Nothing’s changed.’

She’s wrong. Everything’s changed. She just doesn’t know it yet.

I lean across to kiss her, wishing I could relive the last four years, do all of it differently. All of it, except for this bit.

Chapter 28: Joel

1 May 2004

I feed Zoë up, like the baby bird she reminds me of. I tell her she’s cute, which she is. Even though she’s three years older than me, she makes me feel like the older one.

After almost seven weeks of TLC, she’s a different person. Her skin has cleared up and she’s stopped drinking and, with the money I’ve loaned her, she’s moved into a nicer hostel.

I won’t lie. Seeing her blossom makes me feel good too. I needed a project to keep me on the straight and narrow. We have sex sometimes, but only because it’s easy. We’re not in a relationship.

What she needs now is work, so I take her to the Girasol before the bank holiday, to see if Ant might give her a trial shift. If she worked alongside me, I could keep an eye on her. She chats to him for a while, then gobbles up his trademark full Spanish breakfast, followed by a Creme Egg brownie, and I feel proud. When she goes to the loo, Ant comes over.

‘You know she’s in love with you, don’t you?’

‘Don’t be stupid, we’re friends.’

But when she comes back, I see her through his eyes. My mouth goes dry. Her glow isn’t only about better nutrition and laying off the hard stuff. She’s reapplied her lipstick in the toilets and, if Ant is right, that’s for my benefit. The sounds of the cafe – ‘Toxic’ on the radio, kids squealing, the hiss of sausages in the pan – grow louder and more menacing.