‘You were dead to the world. And I’m sorry about last night. What I said about date night. I didn’t mean it. I like date night. I like going on dates with you.’

‘I know. It’s okay. We were both tired. I do love you, you know.’

‘I love you too.’

He pulled me closer to him and I basked in the familiarity of the way our bodies fit together, and then the reality of what was going to happen later permeated my consciousness. I pulled back sharply.

‘Hang on. So they’re coming over, but who’s cooking? Am I expected to pull lunch together?’

Rohan sniggered and kissed my nose. ‘Oh, ye innocent. Can you imagine my mother not cooking?’

‘So she’s going to come to ours and take over the kitchen?’

‘Sorry, baby,’ said Rohan. ‘You know how she is. And, umm, she’s invited Mili, Jay and Sofia too.’

‘Great,’ I said without expression; with the Allerton Circus in town, I’d be lucky to get any painting done at all, let alone tell Rohan what happened to Alfie.

Meena and Clive arrived just before twelve. Rohan and I had been hovering for the previous half hour, unsettled like birds before a storm.

‘Showtime,’ he said, rubbing his hands together when we finally saw the car draw up and my in-laws spill out onto the pavement. The nip of vodka I’d had for Dutch courage was sour on my tongue.

‘Ronu! Beta!’ Meena said, making a beeline for Rohan and enveloping him in a hug before pushing him back to arm’s length so she could drink him in from top to toe while I dithered in the background. Behind her, Clive picked his way up the path laden with Waitrose Bags for Life. His jeans were well ironed and his grey-and-white trainers were too retro to be cool. He’d missed a patch of stubble at the corner of his mouth when shaving, the salt-and-pepper bristles a contrast to the smooth pink skin of the rest of his face. I moved around Rohan and Meena to take the bags from my father-in-law.

‘There’s more,’ he said, rolling his eyes towards the car and making his way back down the path. When everyone was inside the house, all the bags and tubs stashed in the kitchen, Meena turned her attention to me.

‘You shouldn’t do dieting, Abigail,’ she said as she gave me 50 per cent of the hug Rohan had had, brushing her cheek against mine and wrapping me in the familiar smells of fenugreek, cumin, popped mustard seeds and deep-fat frying. She pinched my cheek with yellow fingertips that smelled of fresh onion and gave me the hope that she’d at least pre-prepared some of the lunch. My stomach rumbled. ‘You’re too thin. How are you? The salt worked?’