There was another ominous silence. Not necessarily. A pause. You need something, he can help you. Another pause. As long as you don’t go in with any expectations.

Oh, trust me I’m going in with zero expectations.

For a while I carried on sitting, trying to psych myself up to start making calls.

Take as long as you need, Oliver texted. I’m making sticky miso peppers this evening and they’re quick, so they can be ready whenever you’re home. Another pause. Assuming you do come home. Pause. Though I understand if you can’t.

God, I hoped I could. This had been a lot, and I’d expected it to be a lot, but I hadn’t quite been prepared for how much of a lot it was. And while I was slowly letting myself accept that my best friend’s wedding wasn’t going to kill my relationship, I’d have accepted it much more easily if I actually got spend time with Oliver. Which, if I swung a venue for Bridge, maybe I’d be able to.

I took a deep breath and rang Mum.

She picked up as speedily as ever. “Allô, mon caneton.”

“Hi, Mum.” I sometimes worried that I wasn’t staying in touch as well as I used to but, on balance, it was more that Mum was no longer my go-to panic dial. And, given I was nearly thirty, that was probably healthy. “How are you?”

“Oh, Luc. Some very bad things have happened.”

Part of me was instantly worried. Part of me suspected she was talking about something very minor. “What’s wrong?”

“Judy and I, we were thinking we may have to break up with the Drag Race. There is just too much of it these days. It is like when you buy something on the internet and then the internet, it thinks to itself, Well, she bought this thing, she must like this thing, so I will show her adverts for this exact same thing that she just bought from now until the day she dies.”

“I’m sorry you and Drag Race are going through a tough time at the moment.”

She gave a deep sigh. “It is very sad for us. There is the Drag Race UK, there is the Canada’s Drag Race, the Drag Race Down Under, the Untucked, the All Stars. And there are queens on the new series of All Stars who were on the last series of the main show. That does not make them an all-star. That makes them someone who lost on a reality TV show quite recently. Also”—she paused ominously—“your boyfriend is incorrect and Bimini was robbed.”