It didn’t happen. He came home and we shared a late Christmas dinner. All bodily parts intact. And he was funny, charming and brought wonderful presents back. Then went off to ‘attend to urgent business’ two days later.

‘Of course, I’ll be there! I’ll put it in my diary.’

‘That’s wonderful, darling. Now what else was it I wanted to tell you?’ There’s a long pause, but I wait. ‘Oh yes, Robbie! You know young Robbie?’

‘My Robbie?’ Of course, I bloody know Robbie!

‘I think you had a lucky escape there, Rosalie.’ I don’t know why she calls me Rosalie, nobody else does. ‘You’ll never guess what’s happened.’ I’m sure I won’t, so I wait again. ‘He’s moved to Wales.’

Surely that can’t be the news?

‘He’s got sheep, isn’t that funny? He never seemed to be keen on animals at all. I remember him going quite pale when your aunt Sal arrived with that terrier of hers.’

‘Maybe he’s changed.’ Changed more than I thought. ‘Oh well, must get off, Mum.’ I start to do that leaning-forward-as-though-I’m-going-to-put-the-phone-down thing.

‘And he’s got married!’

What?! I sit bolt upright. Phone glued hard to my ear. How can she add in the married bit as though it’s an afterthought? That is why she called me by my full name. I should have known she was working up to really bad news.

Now I know why Robbie’s mum crossed the road when she spotted me the other day. I’d thought she hadn’t seen me, or she’d been in a hurry.

My hand clutching the phone is suddenly clammy, my forehead too. I’m having a hot flush, but inside I feel cold. Icy cold and empty.

Robbie in Wales is fine, Robbie with sheep is a bit weird, and quite funny.

Robbie married is not what should have happened at all.

How can Robbie be married? Robbie who less than a year ago had declared he didn’t know what he wanted; he didn’t even bloody know who he was.

How can Robbie have moved out and completely moved on? I’ve only just hit the ‘ready to try and date’ stage – and he is bloody married!

I wipe the palm of my hand over my face. When my palm rests over my mouth, it’s trembling.

How could he just move on so quickly? How could he be married? We’d laughed about weddings years ago, but it just hadn’t featured lately.

Maybe he’d gone off me a long time ago; maybe he did know who he was and what he wanted and what he told me was all a load of bollocks. He wanted to be a husband – just not mine.

‘Okay dear, you get off, I know you’re busy.’

‘Fine,’ I say numbly, still thinking about the life I’d thought I had. I can’t quite get it to make sense in my head.

We’d been together forever. We’d never dated anybody else. We realised that we weren’t as madly in love and as totally compatible as we always thought we were.