I scrunch up my nose, wondering if it’s appropriate for me to talk about Emily and Kevin’s fertility issues.

‘I suppose it’s each to their own when it comes to things like that,’ I say to her, hoping she will read between the lines. ‘Sometimes it doesn’t happen just as easily as we’d like it to, unfortunately.’

Sophie leans across and squeezes my arm, telling me I needn’t say any more on the subject. She has fast become one of my dearest friends since the night we met at the wine bar in Dun Laoghaire back in December. In fact, any nerves I had about meeting her and Harry were swiftly shoved to the side when she asked to try on my shoes in the middle of the very upper-class seafood restaurant, then paraded to the toilets and back in them to see if they suited her as much as they suited me.

We spent the whole evening in fits of giggles and walked home in our bare feet, even though it had been a rainy night at the height of winter, and when we got back to her apartment we talked until morning about our shared love of music. Sophie had been a concert violinist in her school days and we ended up singing into the early hours, much to Jack and Harry’s surprise, who recommended we start up our very own girl band and let them retire early.

‘Do you ever think that there is a parallel version of you existing, doing the things you could have done had you made different decisions in life?’ she asks me, staring up at the blue sky. ‘Like, another you? Is that a weird question? Am I drunk?’

I burst out laughing and turn towards her, totally getting her drift and loving the topic of conversation. ‘Oh Sophie, I think about this all the time! I can’t believe you think that way too!’

She pushes her sunglasses onto her head, squints at the sun and puts them back on again. Sophie is pixie-like, with her cropped black hair and petite, dancer’s frame, and to me she is a darling by name and by nature.

‘You’re going to laugh your head off at this but at one point I did think I’d end up with Jack, you know, in one of those “if we’re not married by the time we’re thirty” pacts you hear of in the movies?’ she giggles. ‘We didn’t have an agreement at all, but it was always in the back of my mind.’

I throw my head back and laugh. ‘Don’t hold back there, Soph!’ I joke with her. ‘Ah, that’s kind of sweet in a way.’