‘—or weirdos—’

‘—because why would they bother to go online when they can take their pick of gorgeous women like us?’

We sat there, slumped together, bemused by the mystery of it all.

During those months I became more and more reliant on Azra. It shamed me, how when I was married I’d forgotten about her for weeks on end. Not that she’d minded, I’m sure. She probably didn’t even notice. But when I was teaching I was busy, and in the holidays Greg and I would disappear to Dorset. Being an academic, he did much of his research online and could work anywhere.

Besides, we had children and Azra didn’t. From the day they’re born, children shift the centre of gravity, and it stays that way for ever. In this respect, Azra was an outsider. Sometimes I pitied her; sometimes I envied her life of freedom in her tiny flat in North London’s premier crime hotspot, flooded with sunshine and vibrating from the passing buses. Even if she had the money she wouldn’t have moved. She’d been there for ever and knew all the shopkeepers—the Turks, Afghans, Bengalis—and the names of their children.

In Muswell Hill, on the other hand, everyone went to Waitrose. And, unlike Azra, they’d benefited from the property boom. Our generation had been the lucky ones, buying at the right time, sitting on our backsides and watching our houses turn us into millionaires. So unfair, we’d say, with sorrowful exuberance. My friends had been cannily investing, too, whilst downplaying their purchases: ‘Oh, it’s just a tiny buy-to-let,’ or, ‘It’s for the children, to get a toehold on the ladder,’ or, ‘Of course we couldn’t have afforded it, but I got this surprise legacy from my uncle, and of course we’ve had to take out a huge mortgage.’

I, too, was sitting on a fortune. And I was living in a house that was far too big for me. It had been too big even when Greg was around. He’d said, ‘I don’t want anything, you can have it all,’ but I suspected he’d soon regret this reckless passive-aggression and come to his senses. His sparse, infrequent emails gave no sign of this, but then I was in a state of limbo, too, and unable to make any decisions. There were three spare rooms upstairs, including his abandoned study. I knew I should take in lodgers but the thought of strangers in the house was even worse than being on my own. The creaking footsteps on the stairs, the shuffling around each other in the kitchen, the hesitant tap on the bathroom door. Azra said I should take in a Syrian family—they’d be cleaner and more polite than an English one—but I’d prevaricated.

‘Why don’t you come and live with me?’ I said. ‘You say you’re skint—well, you could rent out your flat and make some real money. You’re always saying you want a garden. And it could be fun.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m good,’ she said. It was a phrase I particularly disliked. I knew she valued her independence but I still felt rebuffed. Squelched.