‘Oh, I’m easy.’ Grace raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m sure you can rustle together some nibbles – maybe some smoked salmon and some olives or something? It’ll be just like the old times.’

‘Wasn’t it Quavers in those days?’ I said.

‘Well, we’re grown up now.’ She smiled and I could almost taste the faux cheese flavour of the Quavers on my tongue as I remembered the nights we’d spent doing exactly that at university. ‘Who needs food?’ we used to say in the early days. ‘Who needs food when you’ve got vodka?’

Maybe I was trying to make a point, but I refused to cook anything, so we settled in the living room with some drinks – another elderflower cordial for her and vodka for me – and some of the fancy snacks she’d bought at the organic store, and I got the nail polish while Grace put on some music. She was applying the top coat on my nails when my phone rang.

‘Husband?’ Grace asked with one eyebrow raised. I nodded. ‘Leave it, or you’ll smudge your nails,’ she said, flapping a magazine to create a breeze. The phone rang again a minute later, and then again.

‘Maybe something’s wrong,’ I said, as the anxiety troops started to assemble in my chest with a familiar surge of tightness. I took a deep breath, and then another, to push it back down.

‘I doubt it,’ said Grace. ‘Do you ever not pick up?’

‘Sometimes… if I’m painting.’

‘But not otherwise?’

‘No.’ Another deep breath. Anxiety spiralling.

‘Because you’re the perfect Stepford Wife, of course.’

I looked at Grace, stung by her words, but she gave a little laugh.

‘Just kidding. Anyway, these will be ready in a minute so you can gossip with your husband all you like.’

I tapped a nail to my tooth. ‘I think if I’m careful…’

The phone rang again. ‘Oh God, now it’s Mili. My sister-in-law. I’m going to have to take it.’

So I connected the call. Mili dived straight in.

‘Where are you?’

‘At home?’ I said slowly, as if it were obvious.

‘Oh shit,’ she said. ‘I’d hoped you were on your way.’

‘On my way where?’ I goggled my eyes at Grace and she widened hers back then shook her head and drew her finger back and forth miming ‘no, no, no.’

‘To dinner with Mum and Dad?’

It took a moment for the penny to drop. Of course, it was the monthly catch-up dinner and Rohan and I had agreed with his parents that I’d go.

‘Shit, sorry, Mils. I’ve been painting all day and I completely forgot.’

‘Can you jump in a taxi now?’ she asked. ‘Mum’s saying she won’t order till you’re here.’ She paused and lowered her tone. ‘You know what she’s like.’