‘Rebecca,’ she says, in that new-agey, softly-softly way she has that makes me want to slap her. ‘I know you’re hostile towards me.’

She pronounces it ‘hostel’ now. Of course she does.

‘Hostile?’ I stare at her incredulously. ‘Of course I’m hostile!’

Alicia says nothing but just sighs, as though to say, How sad that you feel this way, but I have no idea why.

‘Alicia,’ I say evenly. ‘Do you actually remember the way you’ve behaved towards me over the years? Or have you blanked it all out?’

‘Let me tell you a little about my journey,’ says Alicia seriously. ‘When I met Wilton I was in a very unhappy place. I believed I was deficient in every possible way. He helped me to self-actualize.’

Argh. Self-actualize. What does that mean, even? Self-obsess, more like.

‘The old Alicia was in a very toxic cycle.’ She looks wistful. ‘The old Alicia was still a child in many ways.’ She’s talking as though ‘the old Alicia’ has nothing to do with her.

‘That was you,’ I remind her.

‘I know our relationship in the past was maybe …’ She pauses as though to select the right word. ‘Unbalanced. But now I’ve righted the scales, we should move on, no?’

‘Righted the scales?’ I stare at her. ‘What scales?’

‘Why else did I recommend your daughter to Little Leaf?’ she says, looking supremely pleased with herself.

The pieces suddenly fall into place in my head.

‘You recommended Minnie … what, to make amends?’

Alicia simply bows her head with a faint smile, as though she’s Mother Theresa giving me benediction.

‘You’re welcome,’ she says.

Welcome? I’m prickling all over in horror. I feel like striding into the toddler playground, plucking Minnie out and leaving Little Leaf for ever. Except that would be unfair to Minnie.

‘So you think we’re quits now?’ I say, just to make sure I’ve got this right. ‘You think everything’s square?’

‘If that’s the way you see it, then that works.’ She shrugs easily. ‘For me, the world isn’t so linear.’ She gives me a patronizing smile, just like she used to when she was in financial PR and I was a journalist and her suit was more expensive than mine and we both knew it.

‘Forget linear!’ My thoughts are so scattered and furious, I’m finding it hard to articulate them. Let alone stay digna-dive. ‘Just answer me one question, Alicia. Are you actually sorry for anything you did to me? Are you sorry?’

The words hang in the air like a challenge. And as I stare at her, my heart is suddenly pounding in expectation. My cheeks are hot and I feel like a ten-year-old in the playground. After all the damage she caused Luke and me, if she really wants to make amends, she has to say sorry. She has to say it and mean it. I’m holding my breath, I realize. I’ve been waiting to hear this for a long time. An apology from Alicia Bitch Long-legs.