Seeing how quickly your parents’ marriage could go from apparent fifty-year bliss to hitting the buffers didn’t half focus the mind on your own relationship, she found herself thinking worriedly. Could something similar ever happen to her and Matt? Were they strong enough to withstand a stress-test? She loved Matt with all her heart and was fairly sure the feeling was mutual, but with work and teenage sons and day-to-day domestic dramas, she sometimes felt they didn’t make time for one another. They took each other for granted and muddled along through the weeks, without stopping to appreciate their marriage on the way. When was the last time they’d gone out on a date, for instance? When was the last time she’d thought to do anything romantic, act spontaneously? A relationship could drift into the sidelines if you didn’t pay it enough attention. What if Matt was starting to feel stuck in a too-small world, as Harry had done?

‘Now you’re tensing up again,’ the masseuse scolded her just then. ‘Relax. Relax!’

Later on, after the back-pummeller had signalled the end of the session by clapping two tiny prayer bells together with a small ting (what was all that about, anyway?), Paula rolled her swimming costume back up and put on her complimentary towelling robe and slippers again, before shuffling out of the dimly lit room to meet her friends for lunch. Paula had been at secondary school with Nicky, as had two of the other friends, Emma and Fliss, and then there were Nicky’s two sisters, Amy and Louise, which made them a table of six. They’d all just had treatments and so everyone was a bit slow-moving and dreamy as they sat down to eat.

Perhaps it was the ‘Miracle’ massage leaving her a bit light-headed, perhaps it was the sneaky glass of wine that Nicky insisted on them all having with their food, or perhaps it was seeing Nicky and her sisters looking so alike, with their spiralling red curls and their identical mannerisms. Something, anyway, prompted Paula to tell them her bombshell family news. ‘Guess what: I found out the other week that I’ve got a sister,’ she blurted out during a lull in conversation. ‘A half-sister, rather. And none of us even knew she existed, not even my dad.’

That certainly got a reaction from her blissed-out friends, their glazed eyes snapping into focus at once. ‘Wow! Bloody hell,’ cried Nicky, spluttering on her drink in shock.

‘Amazing!’ exclaimed Amy, clapping her hands together.

‘Oh my God!’

‘What happened?’

‘Does she live round here?’

To a woman, they were all so thrilled for her, leaning in, twittering excitedly. A new sister! How lovely – tell us everything!