It’s taken the two of us a long time to work through our issues, but the decision to adopt was mutual. Neither Maria nor I have any emotional attachment to the idea that blood is thicker than water. We agree: there are children who need parents and we can offer complementary kinds of love. Maria’s version is the more demonstrative kind, while I can offer the dependability I never had, the reassurance that I will be there for a kid, through thick and thin.

‘We’re going to have to get a doggy bag,’ Kerry says. She can tell I’m already struggling with curry number four, a lurid spinach and beetroot combination. We pay up and they give us foil trays full of leftovers. When I put them in her fridge back at the flat, the shelves are almost empty.

‘You’re not eating enough.’

‘I’m fine. Remember, it’s different when you live on your own. Not that you’d know.’

She’s right: I’ve never been alone, even though I’d see myself as a loner at heart. ‘And there’s no one on the horizon?’

‘Not you as well. I happen to like having a double bed to myself, and not having to pick up someone else’s socks. Naming no names.’

I’ve known her so long, yet I can’t tell what’s truth and what’s bluster. But I do know I want her to be happy.

I say so.

Kerry steps forward and puts her arms around me. ‘Yeah, I’ll get there in the end,’ she says.

She’s my best friend. Which is why I need to tell her I know everything. I disentangle myself and sit on her futon. ‘Listen, I have to talk to you about something.’

‘That sounds ominous.’ When I don’t respond, she sits down next to me, pouring herself a glass of the cava I brought over to celebrate finishing her foundation years.

‘It’s about Joel Greenaway.’

She winces. ‘What about him?’

‘There’s something I never told you that’s been playing on my mind. He came to the house once, to bring you a birthday card.’

‘Huh? When?’ She sounds impatient and I get a sense of what it might be like to work with her now.

‘The year Mum died. Though it was before we knew she was sick.’ I shake my head. ‘Before I knew, anyway.’

She smiles sadly. ‘Eight years ago? Why are you telling me about this now?’

‘We had a bit of a discussion.’

‘What about?’

‘What he was up to, what we were up to. He said he was doing a course to be a personal trainer.’ I picture his triathlon T-shirt and stop talking to give her a chance to tell me the truth.