Even so, she’s surprised that she feels defensive that there are men taking the piss out of the swimmers on the beach. She can still taste the hot mince pie, but something stronger has stayed with her – that, for just a few minutes, she felt part of a little gang. Perhaps it’s just that having been so starved of company over the past few days, she enjoyed this social interaction much more than she normally would. She’s not met a group of random strangers – well, not in actual real life, that is, for as long as she can remember. She’s surprised by how easy it was to talk to them and how they gave off this earthy, happy energy. She remembers the friendly woman with grey hair saying how amazing she felt. The old one with the white hair and funny accent was quite a character, too.

‘Yes, well, my colleague is … well, shall we say … someone who is never going to get a girlfriend,’ he clarifies and she smiles, glad that he’s distinguished himself from them. ‘I would ask you in …’

‘But it’s against the rules. I know.’ She smiles.

‘You know, if you go on your balcony, I could go on mine? That way we could each be in our apartments and talk.’

‘Oh!’ Maddy is surprised. ‘You mean now?’

‘Or later?’

‘Later?’

‘For new year.’

‘Oh.’

‘Shall we say a quarter to twelve on the balcony?’ he asks.

She wants to tell him that she had been planning on putting her earplugs in and eye mask on and taking a sleeping pill. That she really has nothing to celebrate, but something stops her. She doesn’t want him to think that she’s no fun. Besides, she’s intrigued to find out more about him. And if he’s on his own balcony, then it’s hardly a date. Is it?

The second she’s inside her apartment, Maddy immediately regrets agreeing to the rendezvous. Why is she even thinking about talking to another man, when her head is in such a mess? She has no idea how to behave, or how to strike up a friendship with a member of the opposite sex. She doesn’t have male friends. Ironically, Trent was always too jealous for her to hang out with any single men. Or even married ones, for that matter. So the fact she’s seeing Matteo later fills her with a sense of guilt. Which is ridiculous.

Why shouldn’t she have a drink with Matteo? The fact that Trent would be jealous of someone younger and with much better hair than him makes it feel even more illicit.

But, at the same time, paradoxically, the one person she wants to tell about her new neighbour is Trent. After all the years they’ve shared, being cast adrift from him is deeply confusing. She thought it would be easy to let go, but the white-hot anger has morphed into another more difficult to pin down emotion. It feels like grief. She misses the safe haven of her marriage. She misses her home. And she has nobody to comfort her. She can’t turn to Trent or Lisa. The idea that Matteo is even vaguely interested in talking to her is more comforting than it ought to be.