To atone for whatever it was that had happened under that rabbit, I had spent the rest of the weekend doing all of Patrick’s favourite things: watching foreign films, preparing complicated food that ended up tasting like shite and melting as we walked around parts of a heatwave-stricken London that I, and every single other person I knew, was too afraid to travel through, even on the bus. It was prejudice against poverty that kept us away, Patrick explained, not the fact there was nothing to do and the one pub he wanted to go to had been closed because a secret cockfighting ring had been uncovered there a week before. We had to fight that prejudice by facing it, Patrick explained, he’d learned that in Yangon. He seemed slightly less chipper when we finally got back to the tube station and he realized someone had stolen his wallet out of his back pocket but still, it seemed like overall he’d had a nice time.

And I had barely thought about the kiss at all.

‘I’m in here,’ Mum called from the living room. ‘Your dad’s at the club and we’re on sugared almond duty.’

Every Sunday for the last five years, Dad went to that bloody tennis club in his tennis gear, carrying a tennis racquet, and he came back three hours later, half cut, and passed out on the living room sofa until Songs of Praise. None of us had ever seen him play a single set of tennis. It really was a wonder their marriage had lasted so long.

I set my bag down on the back of my armchair and joined my mum on the floor, where she was surrounded by dozens of little voile bags and a plastic bag of sugared almonds so big it could have ended world hunger. My mother had her glasses on, her hair tied back and was wearing a string bikini. In fairness, she was looking amazing.

‘Please tell me Dad put a hot tub in while I was at the baby shower?’ I said, crossing my legs to sit down opposite her.

‘Every year for the last five years I’ve told your dad we need to get air conditioning and every year he says the weather won’t last,’ she grumbled as she pulled a cardigan off the settee and slid her arms into the sleeves. ‘This is the last year. I’m calling someone next week and getting it done. It’s too bloody hot.’

‘Don’t put the cardi on for my benefit.’ I peeled off my shoes and socks to reveal my slightly-worse-for-wear pedicure. ‘I was going to ask if you’d got another bikini.’

‘Two bikinis?’ she clucked. ‘Why would I need two bikinis? And we did talk about getting a hot tub at the bottom of the garden, your dad could have got a good deal on one, but you’ve got your shed instead.’