Two days later she was back. The house filled up with her smoky scent and her discarded clothes and mini-discs and used ashtrays. She washed all the clothes she owned, then left them damp and creased in the ironing basket while she wore mine, and she took the phone handset off its cradle and put it down where I couldn’t find it on the rare occasions when it did ring for me. She poured us glasses of wine and sat on the kitchen sofa with her feet tucked under her while I cooked, talking about Sam and her life, and asking me questions about mine.

‘Has he called again?’

‘Once, but I was out,’ I said. I had mentioned the Mr Rainbird evening to her and she had been predictably fascinated.

‘Zoe Slavin from school was completely in love with him, you know,’ she confided. ‘And she wasn’t the only one.’

‘Lo, I don’t want to hear.’

‘Oh, don’t worry. He wasn’t at all sketchy around us girls. Not like Mr Allan.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it.’ I hadn’t told Jack anything about my date with his head of year and I couldn’t imagine how the right moment was going to present itself, given the current climate between us. To change the subject I said, ‘I’ve had an idea about Audrey.’ Jack was spending more time at her house now than he did at home and Lola was concerned too.

‘Oh, yes?’

‘We could demystify her, in Jack’s eyes.’

‘And how shall we do that?’

‘By making her a part of the family,’ I said. ‘She’s obviously important to Jack. And she was an old friend of Grandad’s. So it would be appropriate, wouldn’t it, to ask her over to Sunday lunch?’

‘You could try it.’ Lola grinned. ‘You could certainly try and see what happens.’

TWELVE

We sat in another new restaurant, Mel and I. This one had been Mel’s choice. It was very smart and much more expensive than the places we usually went to. ‘This is my treat,’ she said, as we settled at our table. ‘I wanted to come here first with you.’

It was one of Mel’s gifts to make you feel that you were the very person in all the world she longed to be with at that moment. I badly wanted to see her too – it seemed a long time since I had last had her to myself.

She fitted well in these surroundings. There were pale cream walls, leather seats and as a centrepiece a six-foot flower arrangement featuring tropical leaves and blooms like exotic birds. The tall glass windows were partly frosted but they gave enough of a view of the street to make the diners feel a privileged, soft distance from the real world. Black-suited waiters with proper French accents brought us menus and good bread, and blue glass bottles of mineral water.