‘For my sins. I work for a boutique agency. That’s PR spin for tiny little back office. But the people are lovely. Only I’m not there at the moment, I’m on maternity leave. I’m a mum, can you believe that?’

I cannot imagine Soph as a mum because in my head she’s still the eighteen-year-old from the email.

‘That’s amazing, congratulations. Boy or girl?’

‘Boy. Alfie, he’s five months old. I’m not sure who’s more surprised, me or him, that I’ve kept him alive, but here we are.’

‘That’s brilliant, Soph. I’m really happy for you. Are you married or …?’

‘No, but consciously not. Brett and I have been together for coming up seven years. He’s a musician.’

Of course he is. She always had a type when we were at Hartland’s. They were always different but had the same things in common. Leather jacket. Longish hair. Played a guitar. Soph had terrible taste in men over that summer, but I guess we both did.

‘Why am I not surprised? So how’s maternity leave?’

‘I’m going to cover Alfie’s ears, he’s having a snooze on me, but I actually miss work. How wrong is that? You spend your life dreaming of a time that you don’t have to go to work but then the minute you’re not there you miss it. Or maybe it’s just that I miss having adult conversations and having someone else to make me a cup of tea – or getting to drink a cup of tea whilst it’s hot. Sorry, Edie, I’m rambling. Alfie was up four times last night and I really don’t see real people anymore; I think I’ve forgotten how to talk.’

‘Do you not go to baby classes to see other mums?’

‘Oh, I do. I have some lovely ladies that I met at the NCT classes and they’re great, but we only ever talk about babies and how much we want to kill our partners, and we have these weird conversations that take an hour to have but in reality it feels like we only said about three lines to each other as in the meantime we’re dealing with the babies and fussing over them and then forgetting where we were in the conversation.’

‘That sounds …’

‘Dull. I know.’

‘It doesn’t, just different. I can’t believe you’re a mum. So are you living in Poole?’