Driving to the cafe an hour earlier, I’d rung Harry to say that unless he told me the truth about his affair, I was going on the cruise. His reply? ‘Make sure you have your inoculations before you go – inoculations against rednecks and bloody bogans.’ I’d been planning to tell him about the misdiagnosis, but his cool, condescending response made me think Why the hell should I? My irritation was now scratchy as sandpaper.

‘Screw Harry!’ I said. ‘This is about us. I don’t want to communicate with animals, angels, fairies, archangels, ascended masters, guides, stars or those who have crossed over. Nor do I want to fry myself with chemo and get tattooed eyebrows and a muff merkin.’

I cringed inwardly. The lies were just rolling off my tongue at this point. Obviously, I had a personality guaranteed to give a shrink wet dreams.

‘All I want to do is take a little bonding cruise with my dear sisters and reset our sibling compass before I cark it. Don’t you want to learn what turns you on as a person, rather than as a wife or mum? I don’t want to go screaming down memory lane thinking, Gee, these are shit memories! Do you?’

‘You are not going to cark it,’ Emerald said, emphatically. ‘We are going to fight this wretched Kev.’

For a moment all animation left my face. I couldn’t believe that both of my sisters, while solicitous, had refused my invitation point blank. It was insulting to think that, if I really did have cancer, they wouldn’t put their lives on hold for three measly weeks. I could feel a peeved frown puckering my forehead.

‘But you have to come with me. I’ve got cancer! How long do I have left?’ I started frantically fingering those mental rosary beads. In desperation, I began to cry. Not because I had cancer, but because I didn’t have it and had to keep pretending I did, and it still wasn’t enough to win over my warring sisters. Both of them immediately wrapped their arms around me.

‘Ruby, I’m so, so sorry you’re sick. But I can’t just bloody well drop everything. I’ll be here for you in every way I can: I’ll drive you to every appointment, but I have responsibilities – to Mum, to my clients. And to Alessandro. Now the kids are away at uni, he gets so lonely. If we don’t have sex every night, Sandro sulks. The man’s hung like a pachyderm, which means he gets MSB – maximum sperm build-up. Besides, you know that I never do anything spontaneous without a warning!’ Emerald concluded, trying for a note of levity.