‘Jennifer’s crowd are still en route – they went the wrong way on the A9, apparently. And Izzy’s flight from Bangkok – via Paris – gets in tomorrow morning. I’m going to pick her up.’

We had met on the first day of university in Bristol, the four of us neighbours in the same hall of residence, then went on to a shared house until we all graduated at the end of our three years there. For a moment, I wished myself back to our shared house so powerfully that I could almost smell Izzy’s weird and wonderful vegetarian cooking from those days, the perennial post-tennis Deep Heat smell of Jennifer’s room, the heady cocktail of perfume and nail varnish and rosé as we got ready in Rowan’s room for a Friday night out. Back then, it seemed like all four of us were essentially the same – same starting point, same university, same hopes and dreams for the future, just waiting for life to happen to us. We all wanted the same things. Then we had graduated and left our younger selves behind, like snakes shedding their skin.

For more than ten years after finishing university we had made a point of going away for a long weekend every summer, each year somewhere different: Dublin or Prague, Edinburgh or Barcelona. We’d kept the tradition going despite everything – despite babies and work and other commitments – but then one year, when Rowan was heavily pregnant with Odette in the summer, we didn’t get organised, and we just . . . stopped going after that, until we’d missed five years’ worth of trips. I didn’t really know why.

This holiday was supposed to kick-start the tradition again, doing something together to mark the year we all turned forty. The big four-oh. It felt as if we didn’t do this all together now, we never would, so for the first time ever we were going to break with tradition by bringing all the children too, plus husbands, for a whole week rather than just a weekend. Spend some proper time together.

And so here we were, half a lifetime after we’d first met.

A little girl appeared at Rowan’s side, holding both hands up to her. Her wavy red hair was tied in pigtails, her chubby cheeks lively with freckles.

‘Pick me up, Mummy!’

Rowan scooped the little girl up and balanced her on a hip.

‘You’re getting a bit big to be carried now, Odette.’

‘I’m not too big.’

‘Hello, Odette,’ I said to the little girl. ‘You are getting big. How old are you now?’

She studied me with big hazel eyes, fingers gripping the strap of her mother’s sundress. I realised that mother and daughter were wearing virtually identical outfits.

‘Five.’

‘Daniel’s around here somewhere. I’m sure he’d love to play with you.’

‘Don’t like boys,’ she said firmly.