Singing ‘Happy Birthday to You’ had made everybody raucous. Two of the blokes, Jamie and Lemmy, started stamping their feet and whooping. ‘Speech!’ shouted Gillian, a history teacher from school who I had always thought of as a little dull but who was more catastrophically drunk than anyone there, which was saying something. She had spent the evening on her feet and every time I looked at her, she appeared to be standing at a rash diagonal. She had a thing for Jamie and kept touching his arm, letting her hand linger there, then pulling it away very suddenly as if she had only just noticed she was doing it. I had the uncomfortable feeling that she was the kind of woman who flirted with handsome gay guys in a way that suggested she thought the joke was on them, rather than her.

Jamie and Lemmy changed their chant to ‘Li-sa! Li-sa! Li-sa!’, clapping loudly. Lemmy put two fingers in his mouth and made a shrill whistle. Matty and Jasmine were both watching and smiling, shaking their heads.

I demurred, throwing my chin to and fro so emphatically it made me nauseous, taking a large gulp of wine so I couldn’t speak. I’ve never been good at impromptu speeches. I felt dizzy and odd, and had a rush of panic I might black out but quelled it with the thought that as I was sitting on a sofa already, it wouldn’t matter. And Matty was there, he would deal with it. I had had one seizure since I had been with him, back in November, in this very wine bar and of course he had been brilliant. I trusted him completely to look after me if anything went wrong – it was the main reason I had felt able to relax and have a few drinks on my birthday for once. Everyone was looking at me: everyone was clapping and smiling.

Matty pushed past Jamie and Lemmy and stepped up on the coffee table in front of my sofa. The cake had been removed by the young woman, to be cut into pieces, but there was still a platter of congealed fried food that he was perilously close to standing on. Several people who had put wine glasses on the edge of the table snatched them to safety.

Everyone fell silent and looked at Matty. Was he going to make a speech? Matty looked down at me, raised his arms, and began to sing.

‘Outside the school gates, by the traffic lights, I’ll always stand and wait for you at night …’