Yes, she had stiff competition from her best friend, Paddy, who’d been chucked by Goran the Swede outside the Hollywood Bowl at Springfield Quay on Valentine’s Day. ‘I think it was because I looked like a fanny in the shoes,’ he’d wailed the next morning, from inside the cocoon of his duvet. Anya had dropped by, face set to sympathy, bearing Wotsits and a full-fat Coke. ‘The Swedes are so stylish.’

Her sister Georgie had been of some comfort, too, reminding Anya of the time she had been dumped by Ciaran, her high-school boyfriend, three hours into a twenty-two-hour coach trip from Bogota to Quito. This was three weeks into their joint gap year while she’d been suffering from a quite explosive bout of Bogota belly. But, Anya had countered, at least it was dramatic! The Shell garage – the one near the Arnold Clark dealership – with its ghastly, spectral lighting, and nauseous, petroleum odour? There was no dignity in that.

‘I’m sorry, OK. Really,’ Connor had said gruffly, as the tears started to crystallize on Anya’s eyelashes. ‘It’s been on my mind for a while, and I woke up this morning and knew I couldn’t put it off any longer, but we were going to my mum’s and I knew she’d be annoyed if we cancelled, and that she’d have bought enough food for both of us … so I had to wait till after that.’ He trailed off, and then added: ‘I couldn’t do that to her.’

‘To her?!’ Anya had whispered incredulously, but Connor hadn’t seemed to notice.

They’d made it home – Anya watching the raindrops slalom slowly down the windscreen, as Connor offered increasingly strangled and evasive excuses for his actions as he drove them to the flat to thrash out the miserable details. Whys (I just don’t want this anymore); Whens (I don’t know – a while I suppose) and Hows (well, no, we can’t both stay here). Anya followed him from room to room while he packed a suitcase – the expensive one, with the built-in phone charger, more usually commissioned for mini-breaks and package holidays. He said he’d go to Duncan’s for a few days, ‘give her time to get things sorted’. The flat was his, and he’d be reclaiming it. She couldn’t stay for good.

Luckily, by the time Connor had left, Paddy and Georgie were already on their way round. Georgie had been so swift that she’d mistimed it and bumped into Connor in the stairwell as he left.

‘Well, I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know – but no, we didn’t stand there for ages talking about it,’ Georgie had mumbled, as she followed Anya’s shuffle into the living room. ‘I told him there were plenty more fish in the sea.’

A pause.

‘That’s what you’re supposed to say to me, Georgie,’ Anya whispered.

Another pause.

‘Right. Yes.’