‘Do you think we could go for a quick drink somewhere first, you know, before the wine bar?’ I ask Jack, as we whizz past the breath-taking moonlit views of Dublin Bay. The very sight of the Irish Sea, even when it’s only twinkling black in darkness, makes me think of Howth and Tom. It makes me imagine how he and Claire are getting on now, which makes me feel a bit queasy, which makes me feel a bit guilty for even thinking of him when I’m here with someone else – someone who isn’t him … someone who is the total opposite of him in so many ways.

‘We can slip into a pub along the way, no problem at all if that’s what you want?’ Jack says, sensing how uneasy I am.

The train is full of commuters on laptops dressed in dull greys and blacks. As well as my anxiety over meeting ‘the Darlings’, I feel very overdressed with my tea dress, vintage sapphire earrings, extra high heels and funky purple patterned tights. But I reassure myself that I needed to make an effort tonight, plus I should be celebrating.

Matthew is coming home for good. He’s actually coming home at long last. OK, so he’s in a wheelchair and the whole house has had to be adapted to suit his needs, but it’s a fresh start, it’s a new beginning and tonight is the start of the rest of my life.

‘I just feel like I need some Dutch courage before I meet your friends,’ I mutter, a bit mad at myself for feeling in any way out of my depth. ‘Sorry, I won’t be like this every time, I promise.’

‘You have absolutely nothing to worry about, Charlotte, I promise you,’ he says. ‘They are going to love you just as much as I do.’

I ignore that he casually used the ‘L’ word, telling myself that he didn’t mean it in that way, and look out the window onto the darkness of the bay as we fly past, further down the coast. We sit in a comfortable silence until we reach our destination minutes later, then Jack helps me into my faux-fur jacket and my heels click onto the platform, out into the wintry evening. It’s damp and cold but more typical weather for Ireland in comparison to last year’s record-breaking minus figures and snowfall.

I need to keep reminding myself that although tonight will forever stick in my mind as the anniversary of the night I got to know Tom Farley in the snow outside Pip’s Bar, it’s also the same night that I first met Jack Malone, and he is who I’m with right now.