We all stop to order some drinks as the waiter has been hovering over us. The others order a bottle of wine and I order an Arnold Palmer as a special treat.

‘Oh, you know who I could ask,’ says Sarah to Jess. ‘I could ask Mary, the one who runs the place Sammy used to go to, she’s got an extension I think, so she has more room.’ Jess nods cheerily, as if it’s a great idea.

‘Where is it?’ I ask.

‘Oh, just off the park,’ Jess says.

‘Which park?’ I ask, preparing my eyes for an enormous roll.

‘Queen’s Park,’ she and Sarah say in unison.

‘I don’t live in Queen’s Park,’ I say. Again.

‘Yes, but this place is sooooo good, you could just …’

‘No. No, I can’t just. I don’t live there, I don’t want to go there. You can stop making suggestions now, I’ll work it out.’ I don’t like being mothered, it makes me uncomfortable. It is a side-effect of never having been mothered. It makes me feel like someone is putting a hot, heavy blanket over my head. Being cared for is very claustrophobic for me.

There is an awkward silence. There are always awkward silences. I actually don’t find them that awkward because the thing that I want to stop, has indeed stopped.

‘Are you OK, Ruby?’ Sarah asks. ‘You seem even more tense than usual.’

They all find this funny. I tell them there is nothing wrong, but they insist I share whatever’s on my mind.

‘Liam said something,’ I say, causing them all to take sharp intakes of breath. They have been warned countless times not to talk about Liam. They obviously tried to investigate further after the nightmare of the wedding, but I shut it all down. I shut them down, then I had Bonnie, and I shut the marriage down.

‘It’s OK. In this particular capacity I’m happy to discuss him, you can all breathe out now,’ I say, reassuringly, and they all do. Jess’ eyes light up; for some weird reason she reminds me of the mouse.

‘He made a comment that has upset me,’ I say.

‘Uh-oh,’ Jess says, darting her eyes at Yvonne who makes a ‘yikes’ face. ‘This is never a good start.’

‘What did he say, my love?’ Yvonne says gently. She definitely owes me a sympathetic ear.

The time I ‘saved’ Yvonne was possibly the most remarkable. I walked in on her making herself sick in our third year. She had lost a dramatic amount of weight and insisted it was just the stress and pressure of the final exams. When I walked into the bathroom and caught her, fingers wedged firmly down her throat, she looked at me with a look that maybe a murderer would have given me, had I have walked in on them mid-stab. She was scared, threatened, but also determined to carry on.