She mimes holding a pen, and he gets her a sharpie and a piece of paper. She draws out what she wants, shows him her forearm, and he writes the number 150, which she takes to mean the price. It hurts, getting it done, and she assumes he’s trying to calm her because he says lots of things that sound sweet, but are, to Evie’s untrained ear, ultimately unfathomable. There’s a poetry to it, really, communicating with smiles and nods and grunts. When he’s done, he wraps her arm in cling film and gives her a big tube of cream and holds up a hand.

‘Five,’ he says. ‘Every day.’

Evie looks at him. ‘Use this five times a day?’ she asks, and he nods.

She shows it off proudly to Magda when they meet for drinks later on, thrusting it in front of her friend’s nose as she announces: ‘I did a thing!’

‘What!’ squeals Magda. ‘Oh my gosh! A tattoo?! This is very not Evie Bird! Wow! But wait.’ She squints, trying to see what it says through the recently applied cream and cling film. ‘I can’t see it properly,’ she tells her. ‘I don’t want to touch it in case I hurt you.’

‘It says,’ Evie says, a smile so big it could fall off her face, ‘Cite your source. I have a whole story to tell you.’

‘I can’t wait to hear it. Wine?’

‘Wine,’ confirms Evie.

As they try to capture the attention of a waiter and then put in their order, Magda furrows her brow. ‘Hold on,’ she says. ‘Cite your source. That’s from one of your books, right?’

‘Yes, it is.’ Evie grins, and the pride in her voice – the pride in her very bones – comes shining through.

The morning after the night before, where Evie had two glasses of wine and a very galvanising chat with Magda, Evie and her new tattoo are on Operation Tell-Duke-She’s-Sorry. Which first involves finding Duke, which is apparently harder than it seems because he’s nowhere to be found.

‘Daphne,’ Evie shouts from across the set. They’re at their final destination now: Füssen. They have three nights here and then fly back home, just in time for Christmas. It feels bonkers that three weeks ago the shoot seemed like a life sentence, and now Evie doesn’t want it to end. At least not without facing Duke head on, and all the fears that come with it: he’s going to let her down, laugh at her, use her vulnerability against her … the list goes on. It’s not personal: Duke is a lovely man. But one lovely man cannot undo decades of telling herself that love never works. The years of being let down, or rejected, or left behind, over and over again.

She might be able to try, though.

Daphne waves at Evie as she hears her name called, and Evie heads over.