She’s looking at me as though she can’t decide if she’s happy to see me or not. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

Because you told me not to come. But we won’t get into that yet. “I tried phoning, but you didn’t answer.”

“I told you, there’s no reception at the beach we go to.”

Her white Roxy top shows off her taut biceps and tan. As unobtrusively as I can, I look for bruises but don’t see any. I let out my breath a little. Here she is, apparently safe and well. My best friend.

She breaks into a smile. “Oh my God, Kenna! You’re really here!”

I smile too. Oh my God! is her catchphrase and I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard her say it—usually at the latest crazy thing I did.

She pulls me into a hug.

See? It’s all right. Best friends do stuff like this. If your intentions are good, it’s okay to overstep boundaries.

What is a friendship but a sum of the memories of the time you spent with someone? And the better the memories, the better the friendship. Memories of Mikki: me and her nude surfing one night when we were drunk; me push-starting her ancient Beetle down a narrow Cornish road above a cliff; a camping trip when she forgot to pack the tent so we chatted up the campers next-door and booted them out of one of their tents so we could borrow it.

All the hilarious things we got up to. And this will go down in our shared history as another of those things. The time I flew to Australia to pay her a surprise visit. At least that’s what I’m trying to tell myself. She must have been surfing today—her hair is sticky with salt. I peel a strand from my mouth and pull back to look at her.

“I can’t believe you came all this way,” she says. “What if I wasn’t here?”

The thought had crossed my mind. “I’d have found a hotel.”

There’s a stiffness between us. It could be because we haven’t seen each other for over a year, yet it feels like more than that.

“Come on in,” she says.

I remove my shoes before I enter. Mikki hasn’t lived in Japan since she was six but she’s acquired many of its customs from her parents. Dumping my bags, I glance around. Wooden floorboards, junk store furniture. Is her fiancé in? I hope not.

“Are you hungry?” she asks.

“Um. I don’t know.”

She laughs.

“My body clock’s all messed up. What time is it?”

She checks her watch. “Nearly seven.”

“Seriously?” I strain to think. “It’s eight a.m. in England.”

“I’m making nikujaga. A monster batch.”