Now, after all these years, I’ve got used to the routine, accepted it. The fact that Greg is out so much does give me time on my own with Lauren though. We might be on the phone to each other all day or texting like mad things, but you still never manage to say all that you want to, do you? Greg can’t understand it. He has no idea what we find to talk about.

I wish that my sister lived nearer to me. She likes life in London whereas I can’t stand it. Plus I’d never tear her away from being near Jude now. Her place is less than an hour away on the M1, but I still feel it’s too far. We do have a sofa-bed in Ellen’s room that Lauren uses regularly, but it’s not quite the same, is it?

It was always my dream when we were growing up that we’d have houses next door to each other, that we’d get married on the same day – preferably to identical twin brothers – though I wanted to wear a big meringue dress, floor-length veil and tiara and Lauren said she’d wear jeans and a T-shirt. That was our stand for our individuality. I thought we’d have our children at the same time and then we’d all go on holiday together as one big boisterous family and, generally, live happily ever after.

‘Let’s go somewhere fancy in The Hub,’ Lauren says when she arrives. That’s the place in town where all the hip and trendy restaurants are. ‘I’m sick to death of pizza.’

‘I’m game.’ So we head to the Brasserie Blanc and order à la carte, not just from the set menu. The restaurant’s busy and they put us at a small table by the window, which I like because I can watch people walk by and pick dripped wax off the glittering candelabras as I do so.

‘No Jude tonight?’ I ask. Usually Lauren hates to tear herself away from London during the week as there’s always the chance that her lover might find five precious minutes for her.

‘Told him I couldn’t see him,’ my sister says. ‘It doesn’t do to make myself available all of the time.’

That’ll be a change. She’s hung on his every word for the last five years and it makes me sad to think that we never did find our twin brothers to love us. Instead, I found Greg and went my own way and Lauren, after a relentless series of disastrous love affairs, is still not in a settled relation ship. She’d disagree, but I don’t think that pacing the floor virtually every night on your own is being in a settled relationship – even if you’ve done it for more years than you care to count.