‘How are you feeling, Annie? Because I for one still can’t believe all this.’ Jo pushed her empty plate away from her, having made light work of the nachos that we were supposed to be sharing. I knew enough from her first pregnancy cravings not to get in between her and the melted cheese, though. When she was waiting to give birth to Bertie she’d once eaten four Mars bar ice creams dipped in parmesan breadcrumbs – all in a row – whilst crying and telling me that it was ‘the hormones’.

‘I feel. Just …’ I didn’t know what word to finish the sentence with, so I didn’t bother. I didn’t know where to begin.

‘Yeah,’ she said back, nodding in sympathy. ‘I would be too.’

Bri coughed lightly, about to make an announcement. I narrowed my eyes at her. ‘I’ve tried calling him,’ she admitted sheepishly. ‘Over and over. It mostly goes to voicemail but … Look. I’m not trying to cause trouble, but I did get an international dialling tone once. Do you think it’s possible he’s gone abroad?’

It made sense to me if he had. I kept asking myself where the hell he was. Where does somebody who has jilted their bride go and hang out? Do they carry on as usual? Go to work and hope nobody notices that they never get around to wearing a wedding ring, because the wedding never happened?

‘Work!’ I said. ‘I didn’t think of that before but his office was always on about him going out to the Singapore HQ for a bit. I kept wondering if he’d maybe taken a vacation or something but that would make total sense if he was out there. He was supposed to go back to work like I was, and I can’t see how he’d be able to simply take off without reporting in.’