Jasper sat with Lois on his right and on Lois’s other side was Mr Rainbird. She rested her leaf-dry hand first on Paul’s arm, then turned the other way to murmur to Jasper. She seemed even tinier and more fragile than on the night at the hospital, as if the force of one of Graham’s hoots of laughter might blow her away. But she could still turn on the considerable wattage of her charm, especially near personable men.

Caz was beckoning me into the kitchen, so I went to join her.

We were ready to serve our pudding.

When we planned the celebration dinner, we knew that Chocolate Nemesis had to be on the menu. Of all the chocolate puddings Mel had flirted with in her time, it remained her true love and this one was the best I had ever made. The rich dark square was firm on the outside, but only just. It had taken all our combined dexterity to coax it out of the tin and on to the cake board in one piece. On the top I had piped two big interlinked sugar-pink hearts of icing and a cupid’s arrow. There were other puddings, but these were incidental. Nemesis was everyone’s nemesis.

Graham was opening more bottles of champagne and filling glasses. Caz and I lifted the cake board and I balanced it flat-palmed at shoulder height. Caz clapped her hands for attention. Everyone’s eyes turned.

I rotated my wrist and lowered the cake in front of Mel. She sprang half out of her chair to admire it, forgetting the great sickle-shaped wound that ran from her spine to her breastbone. Emergency surgery had meant the opening up of her whole chest cavity. The pain showed before she managed a smile.

‘Be careful, darling,’ Lois called.

‘I am just greedy,’ she murmured. Then she looked up at me. ‘Sadie, thank you. It’s beautiful.’

I stood next to her, facing the table, my fingers just resting on her shoulder. I could feel the protuberance of bone at the top of her arm.

Lola and Sam were at one corner, heads together, their two chairs wedged in a space only strictly big enough for one. They had left the festivities of the first week of university term specially for the party. Paul Rainbird sat with his elbow hooked over his chair back, smiling when his eyes met mine. I had begun, I realised, to look for him to be there.

Jack had asked if he could sit next to Jasper. ‘He seems all right,’ he said, which coming from him was the highest praise. Jack hadn’t talked much during the meal, but he looked composed, even with the embarrassment of Mr Rainbird sitting right across the table.

‘Does he have to be there?’ he had asked when I warned him. But it was a routine complaint rather than a real objection.