Arthur paused. He had his jeans on now, his broad chest still bare. He came towards me, leaning down to kiss me. I kept my mouth firmly closed, scared of my morning breath destroying any scrap of attraction he might still feel. My warped thinking meant that, despite all the indicators that he was more than wrong for me, I had to keep him locked in at any cost.

‘You’re so lovely, Rachel. Thank you for last night. It was…’ His dark eyes stared down at me. ‘It was incredibly intimate, wasn’t it?’

Yes and no.

‘Yes,’ I agreed, holding his gaze.

‘And I’d very much like to see you again. I’ll call you when I’m back from Val D’Isere. Make a plan.’

‘Okay,’ I said, smiling back at him. ‘Have a fantastic time.’

Within a few minutes he was gone. I lay there, marooned in the wide bed, weaving myself an elaborate fairy tale about him. About us. And I almost believed it, because I had to keep running now. Looking back was way too dangerous.

LILY

Boxing Day felt almost respectable – a hint of desperate, but not too exposing for us. I closeted myself away in Rachel’s bedroom, long since repurposed. I had an exercise bike in there by then, shelves full of box files and oatmeal-painted walls, but I imagined I could still see the shadow of the Blu-tack she’d used to stick up her endless Spice Girls posters. It used to infuriate me, the way it left greasy marks on the paintwork, but now she was out of reach, every aspect of her, every memory, seemed like a precious artefact.

I shook myself out of my pointless reverie and called Deborah Madden. We were school mum friends back in the day, now relegated to the occasional ‘girls night out’ as our gang still tragically framed such things, despite the fact we were well into the age of HRT cream and compulsory Spanx.

‘Are you okay, Lily?’ she asked after the opening niceties. Something in the lilt of her voice infuriated me, made me feel I’d given my distress away. Was I imagining it, or was the implied question whether or not I was treating myself to a post-Christmas divorce? Nick and Josh had headed out first thing for a game of squash. I knew exactly where my husband was.

‘We’re great,’ I said firmly. ‘More grandchildren than we know what to do with, and the whole house still reeking of turkey. How was yours?’

‘Oh, you know,’ she said, weary. ‘It’s hard work, isn’t it?’

‘It is,’ I agreed, ‘but so nice to have an excuse to have the whole family together.’

‘Yes.’

The pause stretched out elastically down the phone line. I had to dive in.