The dinner should have been a triumph and outwardly it was. Back at home, she cried and cried. Her despair threatened to pull her under. Frank found her on her bed, sniffed at her and whined. He put his warm nose into her hand and she felt his breath on her skin, in and out, in and out, on the heart line of her palm. They stayed in that pose for ages, until both of them calmed down and Frank settled on the floor with a weary groan.

Soon the snow melted. The meadows flooded. The days were grey and indistinct. On Valentine’s Day she spent the evening with friends in a house off Cowley Road. It was a curry night for singles. Her bike was in for repair, so she walked from her place, passing the co-op and then, after turning onto Magdalen Road, the halal minimarket and the Magic Cafe.

The gathering was more town than gown. It was hosted by Liz, who used to pull beers with Rose at the Half Moon in St Clement’s. Her housemate, Gary, a DJ (he was doing a set later at the Oxford Academy down the road), was there, and his soon-to-be-copper friend, a guy by the name of Dale.

They sat in the lounge, balancing plates on their laps, drinking wine and telling stories of exes. There was the ex-boyfriend of Liz’s who, after getting her pregnant years back in Glasgow, came around to see her with a cheque for a thousand pounds and the message that the baby wasn’t his but he had a friend with a clinic… And Liz’s mum, who caught him making this pompous little speech, was so enraged that her brother had to pin her to the kitchen floor to keep her from attacking the guy.

There was Gary’s ex-girlfriend, a tiny little thing, he said, who used to punch him with great hatred.

‘My current ex-girlfriend,’ said Dale, ‘I mean, the one I broke up with today and who I’ll start up with again tomorrow…’

‘What did she do?’ Liz asked.

‘I sat around all day trying to come up with bitter things to say about her, and I decided to say that she kicked my dog. And it died.’

‘Yeah,’ said Gary. ‘What a bitch.’

Rose kept quiet about her exes. What could she say?

‘Bet you’ve a story or two, Rose,’ Gary said.

‘You’d be right there,’ she said, laughing, but in the end she came out with something trivial and silly. One ex-boyfriend, she told them, a yoga teacher with dreadlocks, kept her bike when they broke up. ‘And sold it,’ she said.

‘He sold it?’

‘For a tenner. That was the worst part.’