‘You looked way worse in the squat. Didn’t you have mirrors?’

‘A couple, but they were for snorting meth and coke off.’ He gives me a sideways glance, as though he’s still half expecting to shock me.

‘Amazed you could afford coke. Unless it was paid for from all the money you made selling drugs to Tim?’

He shakes his head. ‘Coke’s cheaper than you think. And I only ever charged Tim what I paid. It was him started me off selling stuff, did he tell you that?’

Tim has no idea I’m in touch with Joel. I don’t bother to explain my long absences from home, though we’ve both told Elaine I’m doing a lot of overtime to pay for the wedding. The wedding I postponed last week.

I told Tim I couldn’t go through with it, that I had some serious thinking to do about our future. He didn’t try to change my mind, though he begged me not to tell Elaine until I’ve decided what I want.

Why didn’t he try to persuade me I was wrong? He’s ashamed of letting me down with the exams and the drugs, but it’s less than a year since he told me he couldn’t be the person he is without me.

Have we both given up too soon?

‘So this thing today. Why the hell are you doing it again?’

‘To raise money for a local hospice.’

‘What does shimmying down the side of a castle have to do with a hospice?’

‘Nothing specifically. It’s one of the things people sponsor me to do, for lots of different charities. I started doing this kind of stuff a couple of years ago, for fun. I’ve done a sky dive, a bungee jump, a midwinter sea swim.’

He exhales. ‘Woah. You jumped out of a plane?’

For a fraction of a second, I’m back there: the noise vibrating through me, my heart rate soaring, as the flimsy plane took off. Within seconds, we left the runway behind and the green fields became patchwork squares, the rivers the silver threads that stitched them together. ‘The freefall was good. But the flight itself was the best part. From up there, everything is beautiful. Even the poor old pier. I mean, it looked like matchsticks, all stacked up in the turquoise sea.’

‘Was it hard to jump?’

‘It was a tandem thing so I didn’t have much choice. Though I’d do it again like a shot.’

I remember clouds and cold brilliant air and my body at the mercy of gravity as we plummeted towards the beautiful curve of the earth . . . then the sudden kick as my buddy activated the parachute, and the feeling I had of wanting to be there forever.

Joel is shaking his head. ‘When did you turn into a full-on adrenaline junkie?’