‘You split up?’ she asks, high-pitched like a violin. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

I shake my head. Fergus finally sees this as a reason to leave the room and mutters something about leaving us ‘ladies’ to it, but Beth orders him to sit back down.

‘You’ll only ask me what happened later,’ she says. ‘Be supportive, Fergus.’

‘I’m sure Chloe’d rather just talk to you.’

‘You don’t mind Fergus staying, do you, babes? I mean, he can give you the male perspective.’

I lean forward, rest my elbows on my knees. I guess now is the time to—

‘Did he leave you?’ Beth asks. ‘Or was it your call? Was it just not working?’

Oh, it was working fine, wonderfully. But thanks to a spanner being thrown into the works – one the size of a delivery van going fifty-two on a road with a twenty-mile-an-hour speed limit – it had come to an abrupt end.

‘No, it’s none of those things,’ I say, each word slow as I build myself up to say it.

‘Shit, is he married?’

‘Is he gay?’ Fergus pipes up. Beth throws a metallic cushion at him.

I take a gulp of tea. I can’t imagine telling Beth – or anyone, for that matter – that Jack Carmichael – the fella I met at the opening night of a terrible musical just five months ago, the man who turned on a light within me and made me believe he’s a species in his own right, a unique and brilliant individual with the ability to make me feel everything that is pure and good – is dead.

‘We had breakfast together this morning,’ I find myself saying. I’d last seen him sat at the breakfast bar, fixated on the canvas print hanging above the cooker, a photo from our holiday in Thailand; the man in the shopping trolley. As usual, Jack was pondering about what the man was actually doing there, as I half-listened before dashing out to work myself. ‘We never have breakfast together during the week. He leaves for work so early …’

But he had a day in lieu.

Fuck.

Jack would still be alive if he’d just gone to work today. He would never have left our flat in the middle of the day, crossed the road and … oh. I think I know what happened now. Jack must’ve realised he’d left his phone behind, by the blue Marrakech dish. So he’d run back; crossed the road again without thinking.

‘What a fucking idiot!’ I say. Or perhaps yell.

‘That’s the spirit,’ Beth says, standing up and cheering. ‘Fuck him. If he can’t see how fucking fabulous you are, you’re better off without him. I mean, at least you only knew him for five minutes—’

‘Months,’ Fergus corrects her.

‘Whatever. Fergie babes, go and make yourself useful and open a bottle of wine, will you?’

‘I don’t want wine,’ I say.