‘I did, didn’t I?’ Lauren started to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. ‘I do love him, Zak,’ she said, ‘but sometimes I can’t for the life of me think why.’

‘Love can be a fucking awful thing,’ he said with a heartfelt sigh.

And Lauren couldn’t have agreed more.

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Greg and I set off for the North Norfolk coast at ten o’clock leaving strict instructions that neither of the kids are to announce on Facebook that they’re having a party at our house while the old folks are away.

It’s lunchtime when we arrive and check into the Clifftop Guest House. Mrs Emerson is ready and waiting for us. As she has been for the last twenty years. ‘Hello, dears!’ she cries. ‘So lovely to see you again.’

We must be her best customers. I wonder, idly, how much money I’ve paid into her pension fund over the years. Our landlady is a woman of indeterminate age – she’s definitely over sixty but she could be nearing a hundred. I think she’s run the Clifftop Guest House since the dinosaurs roamed the earth. She’s certainly sported the same blue rinse since we started coming here, and may even be wearing the same cardigan.

‘I’ll show you to your room.’

Frankly, I could get to it blindfolded. The only other guests here now seem to be old-age pensioners and not the ones who think that sixty is the new forty.

Why do we still come here? We could be in one of those trendy bed and breakfasts that have wi-fi connections, throws on the bed in shades of chocolate or mink that are fashioned from natural fibres and not polyester, and have complimentary Molton Brown toiletries in the en-suite bathroom rather than an industrial-size bottle of Tesco’s own brand shampoo. Mrs Emerson still hasn’t moved away from nylon sheets and honeycomb blankets with floral bedspreads.

We’re too young to be staying somewhere like this. It was okay when the kids were young because it was cheap and cheerful and Mrs Emerson was fleet of foot and synthetic fabrics were still considered a marvellous new invention. Now as we trudge after her to the same room we always have, I could kick myself for not getting the name of a romantic love-nest-style hotel from Lauren.

If I was a stronger woman, I’d demand that we leave now and find somewhere to stay that had been decorated since the 1970s. This place makes me feel a hundred and nine, not thirty-nine.

‘It’s so homely here,’ my husband whispers happily. ‘Comfy. That’s why I like it.’

And I wonder if he’s lost his mind.