Talk turned to what everyone wanted to order, and I let them decide for me. Molly would know what was best for heartache. She’d apply chicken and rice and noodles; Cora would bring curtness while Betty brought sarcastic comments and Lily … I looked around the room for her and found her leaning on the window next to Betty. She was stealing a cigarette from Betty’s pouch. I got to the window as she lit up.

‘You’ve been suspiciously quiet.’

She smiled. ‘I think Betty here has shared opinions aplenty on the matter.’

‘Come on,’ Betty joined, ‘you’re telling me you don’t have an opinion on this? Or is the reason you’ve kept quiet because you’ve got exactly the same opinion that I do?’

Lily exhaled smoke through her nose. ‘Maybe I’ve kept quiet because I’ve got a different one?’

‘Bollocks.’

‘Lil, are you serious?’ I pushed.

She nodded. ‘Babes, real talk for a second here. It’s radical thinking and I do, as it happens, agree that he’s a total shit for suggesting it.’ She paused to take a pull on her smoke. ‘But, while it’s obviously a huge benefit to Rowan, or so he thinks, I mean, really, he isn’t all that and it’s going to be hard out there for him but whatever, that’s his bad shout. That aside, while it’s going to be hard for him, it’s actually going to be pretty easy for you. You’ve got the world at your feet with this deal.’ She pulled me into a hug.

‘She’s not wrong, you know,’ Faith added from behind me.

‘About?’

‘Well, any of it.’ She eased me away from Lily. ‘But specifically, the part about you having the world at your feet. You’ve literally never had a clue about how beautiful you are, Edi. It’s a shit trick of Rowan, but Lily is right, you won’t do badly out of this.’

‘Finally, something we all agree on.’ Betty winked at me.

‘It’s a bit outdated, isn’t it? To assume that open relationships can only be good for the man,’ Lily started and Faith shot her a warning look; that seemed to be what she was bringing to the evening. Lily held her hands up in a defensive gesture. ‘I’m not hopping on men’s rights. I’m only saying, for a lot of women in long-term relationships, if there was an opportunity to sleep with men other than the one they share a bed with, there’s a good chance they’d take the offer.’ She inhaled greedily on her cigarette again. ‘They might not admit as much. But that’s only because they’re not supposed to.’ She rolled her eyes as she spoke, and Betty rumbled her throat in agreement.