‘What’s the time?’ I looked at the oven’s green digits.

‘Oh, come on. How old do you feel?’ Mel demanded.

‘What the hell,’ I said and took my place.

We played pontoon for 50p stakes and I’d already lost £3 by the time Lola came in. She was wearing her bartender’s black T-shirt and trousers, and her hair was knotted on the top of her head. She looked tired but wide awake, rather than tired and three-quarters asleep as she did in the mornings.

‘This looks good to me.’ She poured herself a drink and sat down to join us. ‘Mum, what’s the news on Jack?’

‘Still at Audrey’s.’

‘Uh-uh. What are we playing? I’m in.’

‘Aren’t you tired?’

‘I’m not ready to go to bed.’

‘Let her play.’

I forgot about Jack for an hour. I lost another fiver, and drank some more wine and laughed a lot. Mel was always brilliant at cards because she wanted to win, and in contrast Jasper turned out to be even less concerned than I was.

In the end Lola was the overall winner because luck had been on her side, as always. She raked a pile of coins into her pocket and beamed around the table. ‘A lot easier than bar work,’ she said.

As the others left we all agreed that we should do this more often. It had been a good evening, against the odds: I felt the warmth of it around me as I locked the front door and turned off the lights.

Lola slipped into my room while I was getting ready for bed. ‘Are you really worried?’ she asked. She wanted to pitch her own anxiety by estimating mine, so I smiled and shook my head. Looking down, I saw that our bare feet were exactly the same shape. I remembered how amazed I had been, on the day of her birth, by the wrinkled crimson perfection of hers.

In the morning, I had a red-wine hangover. I left the wine glasses and debris from last night littering the kitchen table, and hunted for Jack’s bird book and binoculars. Lola had already gone to work. Outside, the sky was white and the sun’s glare made my eyes throb. The drive to Turnmill Street took longer than it had done last time, and I reflected that I would soon have to abandon my car and walk everywhere because it would be quicker.