‘Cheers, babe,’ said Rachel, coming back with the new drinks, and I tried to put some cheer into my reply. ‘So this is an oolong martini,’ she said. ‘It’s made with a Taiwanese milk oolong, crème de cacao, a silver mescal, and aquafaba instead of egg-white. What do you reckon?’

I took a sip of the frothy top. Despite the list of ingredients, it wasn’t actually bad.

‘Yeah!’ I said. ‘Yeah, no, it’s good!’

She beamed.

‘He insisted it needed egg-white,’ she said, ‘but, hello, vegan? So I told him to make it with aquafaba, only not to 26shake it too much, or it’d go viscous.’

‘Are you vegan?’ I said. ‘I didn’t know you were vegan.’

‘Course you did!’ she said. I thought of our lunches, sitting on the bench by the eucalyptus tree. My Tupperware with whatever leftover pasta I’d thrown in, or a default cheese-and-cucumber bap, and the elaborate salads she’d insist on sharing with me, sweet potato and home-made beetroot dip and pomegranate molasses. The coconut-milk cappuccino she’d always get from the posh coffee place, versus my milky Americano or regular flat white.

‘Oh yeah,’ I said, ‘I suppose I did,’ and she laughed.

We both sipped at our drinks. We’d cycled through our limited repertoire of work jokes and now we were flailing, even with the oolong martinis’ help.

‘So, you’re running the Berlin Marathon,’ I said, although we’d already covered that when Rachel said these would be her last drinks for a while, with training in earnest beginning next week. ‘I will definitely sponsor you. Just sign me up.’

‘Babe – why don’t you do it too?’ she said. ‘Alex is doing it, and I think Dmitri. We could all train together – it’d be a laugh.’

‘No offence, but I actually couldn’t hate running more,’ I said, and she threw her head back and laughed.

‘Seriously,’ I said, ‘I still get post-traumatic flashbacks of forced cross-country around Cairnburn in the rain.’

‘Your accent’s stronger when you talk about home,’ she said.

‘Is it?’

‘Yeah, it totally is.’ 27

‘Oh right,’ I said, and tried, and failed, to think of something funny to say. ‘My inner millie,’ I eventually managed, and she smiled and shook her head.

‘I didn’t catch that, babe – your inner what?’

I didn’t have the energy. ‘It’s nothing,’ I said.

‘No, seriously, I love all your “wee” Belfast phrases. What was it you said the other day? Oh yeah – “Who all’s going” somewhere. I love that. “Who all’s going”. I’d love to go to Belfast,’ she said. ‘Maybe you’ll take me one day.’

‘Ha,’ I said, ‘maybe.’

There was another silence.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s just—’

‘It’s ok, hun,’ said Rachel, and gave my hand a squeeze.

I felt hot, treacherous tears well up in my eyes.

‘You can tell me anything,’ she said.