It turned out to be nothing more serious than a broken toe and he’d just been thrown out of his flat that afternoon. He hadn’t supplied a reason why, nor indeed had she thought to ask – well it seemed a bit obtuse to go opening a conversation around something so awkward. His impending homelessness was down to some disagreement he’d been vague about at the time, but later, she understood, he’d forgotten to pay the rent for a couple of months. That was just typical Eddie. When it came to mundane things like paying bills, he never got round to it. Liv put it down to his artistic temperament – the left side of his brain had never kicked in as much as the right – or was it the other way round? She was never quite sure. She felt it made them perfect for each other: Liv had an abundance of practical humdrum in her life at that point, and Eddie provided the breath of fresh air that she needed.

The day she met him again, he was more concerned that the broken toe meant the end of his five-a-sides. Later, she realised that his football arrangement had more to do with going to the pub afterwards than it did with any kind of sporting achievement. She offered him the spare room in her little flat to tide him over.

And that was it, really. He brought his stuff over to stay for a week or two and never left. One night, after a long shift, because she was too tired to cook, she picked up a Chinese takeaway for them. Eddie opened a bottle of Bacardi that she’d forgotten was in the cupboard and somehow, they ended up in bed together. Against all the odds, it seemed, here they were six years later – he’d never left. It had become comfortable between them, she supposed. They’d fallen into a routine and along the way, they became Liv and Eddie. They’d become a couple.

Eddie was the one she could rely on to take her to the pub if she was depressed. With his cynical take on everything, he could make her laugh by turning her worries inside out with just one mocking comment. He stopped her thinking about what might have been and that in itself was a tiny miracle. And wasn’t that enough? She loved Eddie. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. She wanted to have a family. With him. Didn’t she?