‘Yeah.’ Maude looked pleased. ‘I mean, like tonight, I could have kicked off about Nell going off and leaving me behind. Or about you – I would have been fine on my own, and anyway, I was going to ask Evie over.’

‘Evie Wilson?’

‘Do you know her?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Only she wouldn’t let me.’

‘Nell?’

‘I could have made a fuss though, if I’d wanted.’

‘But then you just come off as immature. Again.’

‘Exactly.’ Maude turned her attention to the last of her pizza.

‘It won’t be any fun, you know,’ said Kym, ‘the party; just a bunch of people talking, and old blokes dad dancing all over the place.’ She almost felt sorry for the kid.

‘Hmm.’ Maude crammed the last bit of crust into her mouth, then pushed her empty plate away. ‘Do you want dessert?’

Kym’s stomach groaned. ‘In a bit,’ she said. ‘We could watch a DVD, if you like?’ There was a shelf in the living room, Kym had noticed, filled with the usual holiday-let stuff, friendly-family fare, and the odd rom-com.

‘I’ve seen them all.’

‘Oh. Right.’ Kym started clearing the table, gathering up their plates and taking them to the sink. It was weird, seeing the bankside from this perspective, its shadows lengthening in the evening light; the house was much closer to the cliff than her gran’s cottage, too close, claustrophobic.

Kym picked up the untouched salad and placed it inside the fridge ‘So, what do you want to do?’ she asked, conscious of the little jolt she felt – anticipation, perhaps. Or fear.

*

Nell was clutching a glass of sparkling water and standing by the bar as she chatted to David and his wife, Jenny. They had covered work, and then kids, and Chris’s apologies, before they were joined by new arrivals and David moved the conversation on to sailing. Nell took a sip of her drink, her back was aching and her shoes pinched and she wondered if she might slip away and find a seat.

She was looking around the room when a middle-aged woman approached, smiling anxiously; Nell straightened up and fixed her own smile in place. ‘Cheryl.’ The right name came to her at the last moment. ‘It is Cheryl, isn’t it?’ Her cousin.

‘Nell. I thought it was you.’ Cheryl pulled her into a hug. ‘We’ve got a table, come and sit with us.’

It was surprisingly easy to fall into conversation, and easier still when first Cheryl’s husband, Ben, then her daughter, Nancy, joined the table. Nancy took it upon herself to point out several of the half-familiar faces around the room, offering an inventive running commentary on them, and Nell could feel the knot in her stomach, the anxiety she’d been trying to ignore all day, gradually unravelling. This was fine, she’d stay for a couple of hours then make her excuses and leave.