‘I never found out. I mean, look at me. Two stone overweight.’ She pulled a face at one of the crisps as she put it in her mouth. ‘Bags under my eyes. Grey hairs everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Good lord, there’s no way I could ever get naked with anyone again, that’s for sure. Everything has gone south.’

‘That’s nonsense,’ said Izzy. ‘You’ve just lost your confidence.’

It was nonsense. In fact, with her rosy smiling face, clear, guileless blue eyes and soft cloud of sandy hair, she was pretty; she went in and out in all the right places and had the most wonderful curvy figure. She did, however, have appalling taste in clothes – the shapeless sweaters and baggy trousers didn’t do her any favours. Hannah was no expert but she knew Meredith would look fabulous in the right sort of dress.

‘I’m not sure I ever had any confidence. The girls’ dad, well it took me a while to see what he was really like. I was so grateful that someone was interested, I ignored the warnings. My mum, bless her, kept asking if I was sure. I tell you, by the time he cheated on me for the third time, I was sure. Sure I’d made the biggest mistake of my life but by then I had two under two, no job, and nowhere to go. I stuck it out for another couple of years but then he started getting mean. I wasn’t going to stand for that. Told my eldest Bethany that she was stupid and ugly. That was it. He might put me down but I wasn’t having him do it to the girls. And I’ve been on my own ever since. Good riddance. I don’t need a man around. I’m fine as I am.’

She took a defiant sip of Prosecco.

‘Me too,’ said Izzy, her mouth turned down. ‘I hung on waiting for someone for years. We were friends, occasionally with benefits. Stupid me, I was convinced he’d see the light one day. He did. And married a girl he’d met six months before.’

‘Ouch,’ said Hannah.

‘Yeah, left me heartbroken for a while. Now I can’t believe how stupid I was. Like Meredith said, everyone else could see it but would I listen? I thought because I loved him, he must feel like that about me really. He just didn’t realise it. Talk about deluded. Unrequited love, eh? No wonder Persuasion is my favourite Jane Austen book. Except my Captain Wentworth turned out to be Captain Knobhead.’

Hannah and Meredith burst out laughing at Izzy’s disgruntled tone.