‘Well, no, but . . .’

‘But nothing!’ Naomi sounds triumphant. ‘Besides, you two could potentially be in a relationship.’

‘Now you’re really being ridiculous.’

I’m beginning to regret telling Naomi. I’m still not convinced it’s not a joke.

‘Didn’t you hear the bit where I told you he’s only in his twenties?’

‘Yes. So?’

In the background I can hear the familiar noise and bustle of the city I called home for so many years. Naomi must be on her daily commute home on the bus, just like I used to do. I feel a strange mixture of homesickness and disconnection. I look across at Harry, dozing contentedly by the fire. At least I’m doing something right.

‘I’m twice his age.’

‘No, you’re not – that would make you . . .’ she quickly does the maths, ‘fifty-eight and you’re only forty-five,’ she points out.

I’m not sure when we got to prefix forty-five with only, but I let that slide.

‘He’s still far too young for me.’

‘It didn’t seem to bother your ex-husband.’

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’

‘Sorry,’ Naomi sighs, ‘but what I’m trying to say is that no one cares about age gaps any more. Look at Madonna.’

I look at myself, lolling on the sofa in the bombsite that is my living room, with a bottle of wine. ‘Trust me, I’m hardly Madonna.’

When I was married I never used to give my age much thought. Apart from moaning about the odd wrinkle, I was grateful to leave behind my angst-ridden twenties and thirties. Relieved that all the uncertainty was behind me. Oh, how naive I was. Now, after the events of the past year, I’m supremely conscious of it. Going through my divorce felt like being in one of those time-lapse videos where you start out young and end up feeling about a hundred years old.

‘You know what I mean,’ Naomi is saying now. She sounds frustrated, and I suddenly feel guilty.

‘I do, and I’m sorry: you’re being sweet and I’m being grumpy. It’s just, well, even if Ajay was asking me out on a date’ – merely saying the words out loud seems vaguely ludicrous – ‘I don’t want to go. Not with him, or anyone. And it’s not that he’s too young, or because I’m too old, it’s because there’s no point. I was married to someone for ten years and now it’s over. I don’t want another relationship. I don’t want to go through all that again. That’s it. I’m done!’

I take a declarative swig of wine.

‘But did you fancy him?’

‘Naomi!’ I gasp. ‘Didn’t you listen to anything I said?’

‘Liv, sweetie, you’re divorced, not dead. And you’re not done until they’re lowering your coffin into the ground—’ She breaks off. ‘Hang on, this is my stop.’

There’s the beeping sound of the doors opening and I can hear Naomi getting off the bus, ‘Excuse me’-ing her way through the other passengers, the noise of traffic and rain on wet tarmac, wheezing brakes and the rumbling engine as the number seventy-two pulls away.