‘Don’t tell me now,’ groaned Ralph, and he quietened me by finding my mouth and covering it, until we both broke off to cry out and clutch at each other.

‘I’m not quite finished with you yet,’ I said, restoring my clothing, my cheeks all pink. I unpeeled a brown kiss-curl that had plastered itself to my forehead. I was now feeling relieved that I hadn’t told him what I was going to but I was wondering, when am I going to tell him? If not now, when?

‘What did you say this place was again?’

‘The rod room,’ answered Ralph.

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Of course it is,’ I said. ‘Is there a loo?’ Ralph gestured to the door.

‘There’s a khazi round the back,’ he said. ‘Although none of us usually bother, to be honest. Go in the rushes.’ Ralph’s face looked younger, clearer, as if the storm had passed, leaving blue, rinsed skies once more.

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘You still haven’t answered my questions.’ I sucked in damp evening river air through the window Ralph had opened, as if to cool things down.

‘I’ll try,’ Ralph answered. ‘OK.’

Another long pause.

‘First, I never slept with Clare,’ he repeated.

I raised an eyebrow again. ‘I should hope not,’ I said, still unsure. I couldn’t imagine my husband, in a million years, performing anything other than plain vanilla sex with my ex-friend in order to ensure conception. But now, it appeared, he had… diddied about with… eww!

I didn’t want to think about it. Life was full of surprises.

‘And she’s not pretending the baby’s Gideon’s. She’s already told him… Joe’s not his. Her psychotherapist told her to. You know that Clare’s, um, training to be a psychotherapist herself, I take it?’

‘Oh my Lord,’ I said wildly, reaching for my whisky. ‘Is there some law that dictates that all psychotherapists have to be total nutbags before they start training? So this is why she’s seeing a shrink?’

‘No, it’s the usual drill, so far as I can tell, this really isn’t my area of expertise,’ Ralph answered, in a more relaxed voice.

‘Not another!’ I wailed, and then decided not to comment on the fact that yet another friend is taking that particular path on life’s journey – it was beginning to make me feel lefl out. In the States, educated women approaching forty with time on their hands become estate agents; I don’t know why English women in same boat are impelled to become therapists, it must be something to do with the property shortage. ‘So how did Giddy take it?’ I asked.

‘Well, here’s the thing,’ said Ralph, adding to his glass. The whisky made a reassuringly expensive gurgling sound. ‘He already knew. The main bit, which was that Joe wasn’t his. He’d known. Since before Joe was born.’