‘Well, I’m here now.’ She squeezes my arm.

We all admire Zeta, but she’s always away whenever there’s a family occasion. She’s never been around for Christmas as she’s always doing charity stuff. This is the only thing I resent about my sister, that I have to spend so much time alone with Mum. Having a sibling is meant to lighten that load.

‘Do you think it’s fixable – you know, with Jacob?’ Zeta asks. She clearly always liked him.

‘I don’t think so. The same conversation kept rearing his ugly head. The “baby chat”. I knew it was going to come to a full-blown make-or-break moment. It was like a ticking time bomb we both knew was there – it was only a matter of time until it exploded. It got to the point where it was all he could talk about, and there were only so many times I could shake it off or sweep it under the rug or put the conversation off for another day.’

‘I see,’ she says, biting down on her top lip with her bottom teeth.

‘Yeah. It suddenly felt like kids were at the top of his agenda. You know his two older brothers have kids, and it’s all very family family family with them. With their perfect little Instagram accounts and group family shots and stupid matching outfits … The bloody Brady Bunch. I knew he wanted them, but I didn’t know he felt so time-pressured. I thought it was usually the woman who felt some sort of ticking biological clock. I thought I’d feel something and then that would push us along. I didn’t realize he’d be obsessing over the idea the minute I turned thirty.’

‘Oh, Ol.’ Zeta moves closer to me and puts her arms around me.

‘You know how much I love him.’ I start crying in the middle of the pub. How embarrassing.

‘I have a question.’

‘Yeah?’ I sob.

‘Do you think your fear of having kids might be linked to Dad leaving us?’

‘What … no!’

‘Sorry. It’s just a thought.’

‘Why can’t a woman just not want a baby and for that to be the end of it?’ I say, feeling agitated.

‘I know, I know – sorry. But, do you think you’ll ever change your mind?’

‘I don’t know Zets … I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, though – in fact it’s all I seem to think about – and I just can’t picture myself with a baby. I just can’t.’

‘I know it must have been very painful to break it off, Ol, but you’ve done the right thing. You can’t force yourself to be somebody else for him.’

I reach for a napkin to blow my nose into it, hard.

We end up getting raucously drunk after that. Zeta clearly needs a bender after the intensity of her charity trip, and I just want to forget about the ins and outs of the Jacob nightmare. We do a mini pub crawl down the street and end up in a basement karaoke bar singing an old All Saints song.