He nodded. ‘I wanted to tell you before we flew out here. I wanted to tell you the moment you said you were hurting, because I wanted to let you know you’re not alone. But I didn’t. I don’t know why. I suppose you made out I was so full of life that I didn’t want to let you down. It can all be a bit fake-it-until-you-make-it. Anything to get through the day, sometimes.’

I’d had no idea at the amount of pain that lay behind his cheeky-chappy exterior. He did such a good job of deflecting that.

‘Patrick, you can talk to me about it whenever you want. Mala sounds like she was an incredible woman, and I cannot imagine how much you miss her.’

‘I do miss her,’ he agreed. ‘I don’t think it will ever go away, how much I miss her. I’ll never get married again. But I also know my life has to go on. Does that make sense? I need to find a way to miss her, and also feel my own life is worth living.’

His words hit my gut. I needed exactly the same attitude, but I didn’t want to say as much because comparing my very-much-alive ex to his wife who had died didn’t seem right. But it made sense: if you miss somebody, miss them. If you miss what you had with somebody, that’s okay. Nobody had framed it that way to me before: that we can feel more than one thing at once. Sadness and hope. Regret and pride. Shame and longing. Despair, but also a pull to keep on.

‘I think I needed to tell you because I know we laughed at my being mistaken for your husband at the departure lounge, but it feels disloyal to Mala somehow. I am her husband. Or was. I actually only stopped wearing my ring a few weeks ago. I put it in my bedside drawer the day before I saw you at bootcamp, as it goes.’

‘Going forward we’ll make it crystal clear to everyone that you’re Mr Hummingbird and I am Ms Wiig,’ I pledged. ‘I promise, okay?’

‘Thanks,’ he replied. ‘Not that she’s coming back of course. But if I can be so woo-woo as to say that energetically, it doesn’t feel great?’

I reached out a hand to his. ‘Patrick, I am so pleased you recognized me that day at Barry’s. I’m so pleased to know you again now. We’ll have fun this trip, okay? It’ll be good for both of us. No obligations, nobody telling us how to feel or justifying ourselves – just doing what we want to do, when we want to do it, even if that thing is different from what the other person wants to do. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ he granted.

Our eyes drifted out to the vineyard again, companionable silence coming with it.

‘Annie?’

‘Mmmmm?’