Sophie rolls her eyes. ‘He isn’t joking about being a spoilt brat at school!’ she says to me. ‘Harry went to the most elite primary school in Wales and made his mark on the place forever. You know the type where they wear a hat and blazer as part of their school uniform? And his mum tells me he tormented the teachers every day he was there.’

Oh dear. I have about twenty versions of mini Harry at my new school then, I think to myself. It’s just going to take time to settle in, at least that’s what Jack keeps telling me.

‘Do you hear Miss Head Girl, here!’ says Jack, sticking up for his male companion and joining in on the banter. ‘Sophie, you were a right little climber at boarding school, always licking up to the teachers, not even satisfied to be a class prefect, oh no. Head Girl was what Sophie wanted to be and that’s what Sophie was.’

‘I call it ambition,’ laughs Sophie. ‘I wonder where the hell all that fire went to sometimes when my clients are boring me to tears. You all right, Char?’

I sit up straight.

‘Huh? Yeah, I’m fine,’ I mumble, taking a drink of my cold wine, then another just for luck. If Charlie is my common, girl-next-door nickname that is forbidden by my parents, then ‘Char’ is the polar opposite, a reflection of the upper-class teacher in the upper-class school, with the upper-class friends in my ever-so-fancy car and upper-class home in the countryside. How the hell did I get here?

‘I bet the parents are stuck-up assholes too,’ says Harry, reinforcing my reluctance to relate to my new job and all that comes with it. I can’t help recalling my carefree, more casual approach to teaching at St Patrick’s where the children loved to hear me make up stories and sing my ‘lucky number’ song at the drop of a hat.

At Holy Trinity it’s the opposite. We have a strict curriculum to adhere to, with weekly reports to be filed, so, in the eyes of rich, paying parents who want only A grades on their child’s records, there’s no time for spontaneous creativity.

‘I can’t say I have much in common with them,’ I say to Harry, trying to be diplomatic, but experiencing a twist in my stomach that feels like homesickness. ‘They’re definitely a world away from anything I’ve ever been used to.’

Jack has gone to check on the food, uncomfortable, I guess, with my indifference to a job he encouraged me to go for, while Sophie realizes it’s time for a subject change.