‘Without me,’ I finished, stunned at myself. ‘I was going to say, I’m sure you can cope for five days without me.’

Ten silent seconds ticked by. We never talked about what had happened the last time I’d gone away with work, not ever. We didn’t speak of it, we didn’t reference it, we didn’t even hint at it. The past was in the past and the best thing for both of us was for it to stay there. So why had I come so close to speaking it to life?

‘We agreed you wouldn’t leave again,’ Stew repeated and I knew he wasn’t going to let this go easily. I’d been a fool to myself if I thought he would. ‘When exactly are you back?’

‘Tuesday,’ I said, twisting my hand around the railing. ‘I’ll be back Tuesday.’

‘Good. I told our Mandy we’d go round for dinner Thursday night to talk about this teacher idea,’ he replied. ‘So, make sure you are.’

And then he hung up.

I kept the phone pressed against my ear for a moment more, taking an extra beat to compose myself. One breath in, one breath out, pack it all away and deal with it later. Clearing my throat, I slid my phone back into my pocket and turned to face Juliette with an apologetic smile.

‘Well,’ she said, holding out her hands for a fish-bowl-sized gin and tonic from one of the stewards who was not Lenny. ‘That sounded fun.’

‘It was nothing, just domestic strife.’ I sat back on the sofa and took an enormous swig of my extremely strong drink. ‘Please pretend it didn’t happen.’

‘The phone call from your fiancé or the domestic strife?’ she asked, with one eye on me, the other on my rapidly disappearing drink. ‘Assuming it was your fiancé?’

‘It was,’ I confirmed. ‘And both, if you don’t mind. It really was nothing.’

Juliette slid her feet up underneath her, tucking the edges of her dress around her shins. ‘How did you two meet?’ she asked.

Under normal circumstances, I avoided all personal chat on the job, but there was something about the look on her face and the way her brown eyes glowed in the dark that made me feel like I could talk to her about anything, even the fact I once had a sex dream about Keir Starmer so vivid, I couldn’t so much as look at the Guardian for months.

‘At university,’ I said, smiling at the memory. It was still a happy one, even now. ‘We were both in our third year, at some terrible first week back thing. I think there were three members of S Club 7 performing at the student union.’

‘Makes perfect sense,’ she grinned back at me and I felt warm all over. ‘Who wouldn’t be seduced by half-price alcopops and the undulating beat of “Don’t Stop Moving”?’