As I go to leave, I look over at another table and see four girls – younger versions of us – sitting, cackling, in shiny dresses, with no wrinkles, their heads rolling back, eyes sparkling and not yet tired by life. That used to be us.

I take my jacket from the wooden coat stand by the door, right next to our window-side table.

‘You OK?’ Jono says, putting his large hand on my shoulder.

‘Yeah,’ I sniff. ‘Sorry Jono, for taking up your best table and not even ordering anything.’ I gesture towards our empty seats.

‘It’s OK, Olive. You will always be special customers to me.’

‘We wasted a booking – sorry.’

‘Don’t be silly. You’ve come here for a long time. You girls have a long special friendship. I’ve seen it. Hold on to each other.’

‘Thank you. I just feel like things are weird at the moment.’

‘You must move with the tides: life is full of pushes and pulls.’

‘True, Jono. True. I just need them right now.’

‘Of course you do.’ He pauses dramatically. ‘And remember, they need you.’

‘I hope so,’ I sigh.

‘Come back very soon, yes?’ he says, wiping down the table and taking away the glasses.

Instead of going home, I reroute to the bar down the road called Mizzi’s, and proceed to tell the barman – who coincidentally looks a bit like Gunther from Friends – my life story like a weirdo in a film, while slowly getting red-wine teeth. I don’t realize how much I resemble a vampire until I see my reflection in the mirror of the sticky-floored bathroom, and stare with horrified fascination at my bright purple mouth, my lips stained in the corners.

I know how much they all have going on, but I still can’t shake the feeling that the girls have let me down. I’m bursting with the need to talk to someone about the break-up with Jacob. Stumbling out of Mizzi’s, I sit on a doorway step. I reach for my phone and try to drunkenly call Colin, but his phone is switched off. I type in Zeta’s name, but she is on a charity work trip and I know she only has occasional access to Internet cafés. I can’t bear to ring Mum and tell her yet, as she just won’t get it. I put my phone back in my bag.

When I finally stumble home around 1 a.m., I have a terrible, drunken urge to text Jacob. I type out a message and instantly make a typo. A reminder of how much wine I have consumed.

No. No. I can’t.

Maybe I should?

Maybe he’d want to hear from me?

No. Olive. Stop it.

Standing by my front door, trying to fish my keys out of my bag, I notice that Dorothy Gray’s light is still on. Dorothy is my eighty-eight-year-old neighbour. Everything else is dark but I can see her fuzzy TV screen; it looks as if a black-and-white film is playing. I’ve met her a couple of times at the local residents’ meet-up or while taking out the bins. She lives in a big house directly opposite my block of flats, and we have a nice old chinwag if we’re ever going inside or leaving home at the same time. Her house is ginormous, with its own driveway. She never seems to sleep or, at least, turn out her lights. I hope she’s all right. Maybe she just watches TV all night (like me). Each to their own. My curtains are not quite closed, and there is a thin stream of bright light coming from her house into my bedroom. Perhaps it should be annoying, but I feel some warmth from it. Perhaps I’m not alone.