The next message was from Noah, to tell her he was proud of her and to assure her that he would be on hand should her mum need any help with Clara, or anything else.

Libby’s text was basically the equivalent of a long scream of ‘OMG, you are going to work with THE Ewan McLachlan’, which was about as excited as she had ever known Libby to get.

Just before her taxi arrived, a text message arrived from Harry, which made her smile. Everyone knew that Harry used his phone only very sparingly and in fact he probably wouldn’t have one at all if she and Noah hadn’t insisted upon it after his heart attack.

That he took time to type her out a full message was akin to a modern miracle. She imagined he had taken forever to find each letter and make sure his punctuation was impeccable – and all the time with his eyes squinting at the small font and his pointer finger jabbing at the phone.

Dear Jo, I wanted to wish you the very best of luck with your writing trip. Libby told me about it this morning when she called in to buy some milk. It was semi-skimmed, even though everyone knows full cream milk is much nicer. I keep telling her that she might get even more customers if she switched, but no. She doesn’t listen to me. I don’t understand you young people and your choices. Yours Sincerely, Harry Gallagher (from the shop).

She smiled at his message, and at his clarification that he was Harry from the shop. As if there was any other Harry in her life, let alone one who could opine even in a good luck message. She felt her spirits lift, but only momentarily. The realisation that the one message she really wanted, the one she had been hoping for, had not arrived. No, Lorcan seemed to have gone radio silent on her and she couldn’t help but feel disappointed, then angry, then indifferent.

After all, this wasn’t about Lorcan and he shouldn’t be taking up any of her thoughts now, not when she was on her way to Ewan McLachlan’s hotel.

By the time her taxi pulled up outside, Jo had managed to clear her mind enough to look forward to seeing the handsome writer again and hearing more of his thoughts on her writing. He had been so witty and entertaining the previous night, both when he was addressing his readers and when he was speaking to her. He had, she realised, spoken to her with genuine respect as if she was indeed a proper writer, which she was finally starting to believe might be possible.