We all agree on having the cheeseboard for pud-ding and Giles grabs another bottle of red from the wine rack, plonking it onto the table. He tells me just to holler if I want ice cream or lemon meringue and I’m so overwhelmed by the warm hospitality that I jump on the honesty bandwagon.

‘I’ve been doing stuff … without Jack,’ I blurt out. ‘As in, stuff we should’ve been doing together. That sounds so crazy out loud. Shit.’

Giles stops spreading Camembert onto a cracker to give me direct eye contact.

‘Unfinished business?’ he asks; helping me, prompting me.

‘I even went to Thailand. Bangkok. And then to this little town in Vietnam.’

Ingrid nods for me to go on as she stuffs her mouth with a large slice of blue cheese, sucking the tips of her fingers and then wiping her hands with the tea towel Giles left on the table.

‘It wasn’t long after Jack died. And it was stupid. I was convinced it’d mean something – God knows what – but I seemed to think I’d have some sort of epiphany and feel happy again. Or make sense of Jack being killed. And all it did was make everything worse.’

‘Worse than Jack dying?’ Ingrid asks. She really does have a knack, doesn’t she?

‘No. No, not worse. You’re right. But it definitely never made it better.’

‘There’s no quick fix for grief, Chloe,’ Giles says, edging the cheeseboard closer to me. ‘Something broke inside me the day my mother died. I can’t say it ever fixed. But now I try to accept that it’s changed, rather than broken. Easier said than done, though.’

The gentle headspin created by the wine makes me speak before I think. ‘You knew your mother your whole life,’ I say. ‘I’d only known Jack for a smidgeon of mine, except I thought I was gonna know him for the rest of it. It’s made me do some really stupid things …’ I trail off, aware that I’ll sound unhinged if I mention the quest for the man sat in the shopping trolley. ‘God, I’m so sorry, Giles. I was really presumptuous then, wasn’t I? I hope you weren’t little when your mum—’

Giles holds out his hand, gives it a shake, along with his head.

‘It’s okay, it’s fine,’ he says. ‘I was seventeen.’

‘Oh, bloody hell.’

‘No, really. I got a whole childhood.’

Ingrid starts to clear the cheeseboard.

‘What stupid things did you do, Chloe?’ she asks. ‘Tell us, tell us!’

‘I kissed a guy.’