Still, I wish the thought of a phone call from Greg could instil such excitement in me. But then he and I have been married for over twenty years. Isn’t it normal for some of the excitement to go? We’d be in a permanent state of exhaustion if love was still a frenzy after all that time. Am I right?

It’s just that now I feel like we’ve passed from excitement, to contentment, to rut. Quite deep rut. Borderline trench, if I’m truthful.

We got out of the habit of going out when the children were young because we didn’t have the money. Now we don’t have either the money or the inclination. Or one of us doesn’t. And I don’t think that it’s me. Is this grey monotony what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life? I have to do something or I might just go stark raving mad.

‘We’ve got a year,’ I say decisively. ‘Not quite a year before we’re forty. It’s not too late for us to turn things around.’

‘How are we going to do that?’ Lauren wants to know.

‘We have to decide exactly what we want first.’

‘That’s easy for me,’ Lauren says. ‘I want my man and,’ she turns to look at me, eyes misty, ‘maybe I want a baby too, Annie.’

‘A baby?’ This is the first time she’s admitted that to me. It could be the drink talking.

‘Christ,’ she says. ‘Let’s face it, I’m not getting any younger. It could be now or never. What if I leave it too late?’

I slip out of my bed and get in next to Lauren as we used to do as youngsters. We snuggle up together. It reminds me of when we were teenagers and I get a stab of regret that we don’t get the opportunity for all-night heart-to-hearts any more.

Sometimes I wish that we didn’t lead such separate lives, that we were still as close as we used to be. But the fact that Lauren is always hanging on, waiting for precious moments should Jude suddenly become available, means that she’s impossible to pin down. She only comes to our house at the weekend if Jude is going off somewhere else with his family as she always lives in hope that he might pop by on the off-chance. Not only is he messing up Lauren’s life, but I feel he’s coming between us and I resent that too.

‘I had no idea you felt like that,’ I say gently.