The door to the men’s changing room opened again and the gentleman walked out, thankfully dressed in crisp tennis whites.

‘Good evening,’ he said with a polite nod. I smiled back, unable to form words.

‘Ros?’ I heard Mum shout. ‘Are you still on with Jo?’

‘Um, she didn’t answer,’ I called back before joining them. ‘I was just checking work emails, talking to myself.’

I was a terrible liar.

‘Maybe we’ll cut off her credit card,’ Dad suggested. ‘See if that gets a response.’

I said nothing. I did not have a credit card when I went to university, let alone one that my parents paid for.

‘Shall we have a look outside?’ rugby shirt proposed. ‘You can have the rose garden as well as this room, in case you want a bit of outside space.’

‘Rose garden!’ I said to Mum, giving her an encouraging nudge. She forced a smile, attempting to reinflate herself for a moment as we ventured outside.

A moment was more than long enough. The rose garden was not a rose garden. The rose garden was a square of ancient Astro turf with a battered white picket fence around the outside and half a dozen plant pots filled with plastic flowers.

‘Nice spot for the smokers,’ rugby shirt said. He nudged one of the plant pots and I realized it was brimming with cigarette butts.

‘We can make it nice,’ I said as my mother’s face fell so far, I’d have had to get down on my hands and knees to pick it up. ‘Lucy’ll help. You know she’s amazing at this kind of thing.’

‘If we burn it to the ground would there be time to rebuild?’ she asked.

I was trying to work out just which shade of lipstick to put on this particular pig when my phone buzzed again. Only when I saw the name on the screen, this time I was very keen to answer.

‘Sorry!’ I said, holding the ringing phone aloft again as evidence. ‘Another important call. I’ll be two seconds.’

‘She’s a producer,’ Mum explained to our host with a warm edge of pride in her voice. ‘She just got back from a very important job in Washington and they always need her help at her new job.’

‘She’s never off the bloody thing,’ Dad clarified. Rugby shirt rolled his eyes and nodded in understanding as I skipped along to an empty bench next to the tennis courts.

‘Hello?’ I answered, breathless.

‘What are you doing tonight?’ Patrick asked. ‘I want to see you.’

I shivered with delight.

‘Sorry, I’m with my parents,’ I told him, all regret. ‘They’re doing wedding stuff and I said I’d help.’

‘That’s a shame,’ he said sadly, even though I could hear the smile in this voice. ‘I finished my chapter early, I was hoping I might lure you out for a drink.’