‘Hey Chris.’ I touch OAP’s wet, dribbling chin. He does look really cute in his dinosaur patterned onesie and it melts my heart a little.

‘All right, Olive?’ Chris says in his usual deadpan tone.

‘How are you? Feel like I’ve been asking Cec how she is but I haven’t had a chance to ask you yet!’

‘Yeah, all good thanks. Cec’s doing most of the work, to be honest, like she should be.’ He does a wink.

‘I’m sure you’ve been helping a lot.’

‘Not really. Busy time at work, can’t leave the lads, I mean the team, dangling.’

‘I see.’

‘Cec’s been amazing, running around like a headless chicken. The silver lining is that she’s losing her baby-weight quickly at least.’ He laughs, heartily. God, he is such a dick. ‘I’ll be getting her back in the gym soon. She’ll have to keep up with my six-pack,’ he says, slapping his stomach.

Chris is the worst, but somehow we always find a way to forgive him, because he’s clearly not going anywhere and Cecily does really love him. Unfortunately.

Phew, I spot Bea. She has just walked in with her army of kids behind her. Arnold is wearing a VR headset as a hat, Amelia has wild hair and a giant bow headband on, and Andrew is hitting people with a plastic light sabre. I’ve never been happier to see them all.

‘How lovely is this?’ Bea says, making her way over to me. ‘It all came together in the end! How are you, sweetheart?’ She leans over to kiss me on the cheek.

She is wearing a large hat – big, white and ruffly. It kinda looks like that Ikea lampshade, the one that everyone in the world has. It keeps poking me in the side of the head when she leans in to speak to me.

We take a glass of champagne from a silver tray and thank the waiter. This party is ridiculously fancy. It doesn’t feel like Cec’s kind of thing.

‘Where’s Jez?’

‘Working, of course. He is really sad to miss this, though. He sends his love,’ Bea says. ‘Amelia, come here, let me wipe your nose with this tissue, darling!’

‘Is it hard with him being away so much?’

‘Yeah. It’s basically just me dealing with these three on my own but, you know, I just get on with it.’ Bea pinches Amelia’s nose with the tissue while she wriggles away. ‘It would be nice if he called or texted occasionally, though; it’s difficult to keep telling the kids that Daddy’s too busy to talk,’ she says, stiffly.

Bea is usually unflappable, but she seems a bit stressed out, and hasn’t made eye contact with me. It feels like she’s not telling me something.

‘Amelia love, will you go and put this tissue in the bin over there?’ Bea says, pointing to a very expensive tall bin in Cec’s kitchen. A bin that might also be a robot that cleans the house. One of those bins.