‘I don’t have you,’ Paula said. ‘You’re my friend, but you’re not going to be there in the middle of the night when I wake up and can’t get back to sleep, or when I’m sick and need someone to rub my back. Or to cuddle when I’m sad, or go on holiday with, or…’

‘I can do the last two,’ Meredith said miserably, not pointing out that Paula was sad and she was currently trying to cuddle her. ‘But I know what you mean. I don’t have anyone for those things either, if it’s any sort of consolation. Living on your own is fine once you get used to it. Really. It’s all in the mindset.’

Meredith saw Paula’s face and hastily backtracked. ‘Not that I’m saying grin and bear it, or be positive, or any of that shit. You need to give yourself time to mourn Ralph, but it will get better. It will…’

Paula gave her a perfunctory hug back, then pushed her away to drink more wine. Leaning forwards in her chair she stared at Meredith through her bloodshot and swollen eyes, her mouth in a tight, angry line. Meredith wondered if, subliminally, she knew that it was her she was quite right to be angry with.

‘Have you ever lost anybody you really, really loved, Meredith?’

Meredith gave it some serious thought. She’d loved her parents, especially her dad. She thought she’d loved the various partners she’d had over the years, although she’d barely given any of them a second thought once they’d broken up. ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘Pete’s the only one who would break my heart.’

Then: a sudden memory of freckles like sunshine and red hair that smelled of wheat and lavender, a smile as wide as a country mile and a sexy midwestern accent…

‘Actually. There was someone once, when I was young. I was really in love with … her.’

It was the first time she had ever admitted to anybody other than Pete that she’d been in a gay relationship.

‘Her?’ Paula’s face relaxed a little, and Meredith thought, Well, at least that’s taken her mind off Ralph for a second or two.

‘Yeah. I was only about seventeen when we met – in fact, it was my seventeenth birthday. I met her the day I went to a Greenham Common protest and got arrested. We went out for a couple of years after that, but nobody really knew, apart from Pete, and he only found out near the end that we were anything more than friends. I moved to a squat in London to live with her.’

Paula’s eyes were like saucers. ‘Really? I didn’t know you were bisexual.’