‘Well, whoever they are.’ She groaned, and I imagined her struggling to sit upright. ‘They’re a bloody liar. Christ on a bastard bicycle.’ She exhaled hard into the phone and I held my quiet. I’d known Betty long enough to know that sound as the prelude to … ‘No, no, I’m fine. I don’t think I’m going to chunder. I’m hungry, if anything.’

‘Me too. Shall I group-chat people, see who’s about for breakfast?’

‘Oh, but the girls are so loud,’ she moaned.

‘Think of it as penance.’

‘For what?’

‘George. I’ll text you.’

I disconnected the call before she could grumble further.

*

Lily was the last to order – ‘Can I get the fruit pancakes but, like, I don’t know, maybe with a side of bacon? But on the pancakes? Is that doable?’ – and then we fell over ourselves reaching for tea, coffee, more coffee. ‘Hold the sugar.’ Lily put her hand up to create a physical barrier between her mug and the dish. ‘The last thing I need is something to make me more jittery today.’ When everyone was settled with a drink in front of them, we took it in turns to relay our memories of the evening. The general consensus by the end of the catch-up was that it was a) a cracking night out and b) definitely not something we wanted to repeat for the hen night.

‘Didn’t someone say something about a weekend?’

‘Oh, Lily, don’t.’ I took a greedy mouthful of black coffee. ‘I can’t do a whole weekend.’

‘No,’ Betty agreed. ‘Probably best to stick to a night.’

‘In a city where Betty doesn’t know anyone,’ Cora added, ‘ergo, the walk of shame—’

‘Ah, stride of pride,’ Betty interrupted. ‘I feel no shame.’

‘Isn’t that your superpower?’ Faith rested a head on Betty’s shoulder and batted her eyelashes, as though that might soften the sting of her comment. ‘That and being able to sniff out a single man from a five-hundred-yard distance.’

‘Although …’ I checked my watch. ‘Given that Molly hasn’t turned up yet, maybe Bet wasn’t the only one who grabbed a coat last night?’

In the second summer at home from university, we’d all reunited for semi-drunken antics and a catch-up on life outside of our small and humble hometown. Betty, true to form, had managed to bag herself a man on the first night we were all back together. In a drunken stupor she’d whispered, ‘I’ve grabbed a coat, Edi, I’ve grabbed a coat,’ before disappearing into the night with an unknown bloke. The phrase had sort of stuck since then.

‘She won’t admit to it—’ Cora leaned in and lowered her voice ‘—but her and Paddy have been messing about for a bit.’