I step into the cool kitchen, relieved to be out of the unseasonably warm sunshine, and make my way into the hallway, looking behind me as I step off the tiled floor onto carpet, entering the living area. The room is immaculate, with no sign that two boisterous twins live here. Rupert told me about his godchildren, and I realize that I haven’t seen any sign of the children for the entire afternoon. I can only assume that Sadie has a nanny, that they are tucked away out of sight, another reminder that this is a whole different world to the one I inhabit. I wonder for a moment if that’s how it would have been, had Rupert and Caro had children together, before allowing myself to imagine for the briefest of seconds how it would be if Rupert and I had children together.

Casting my eyes around the room, I notice that a lot of the furniture in here is remarkably similar to the stuff Rupert has in his own living room, and I wonder whether Caro had extended her influence to Sadie’s house, or whether Sadie gave direction to Rupert after Caro died – or maybe they just had similar taste. Years of being best friends might do that to you, I suppose. I wouldn’t know, having not had a best friend since primary school. It’s things like these that I don’t feel ready to ask Rupert yet. There is a piano at the end of the room, and as I approach it, I see that the top is littered with framed photographs, most of them depicting Caro in some form or another. Caro holding a baby – presumably one of the twins – as Rupert stands to one side looking a little awkward, Caro and Rupert on their wedding day, Sadie and Miles either side of them, all four of them grinning madly at the camera. Sadie and Caro on a beach in bikinis, definitely a few years ago, I think slightly bitchily, their arms slung around one another’s shoulders. Sadie and Rupert grinning into the camera, faces smashed together, a party hat at a rakish angle on Rupert’s head. I fight down the envy that rises in me, at years of memories on display.

‘Em? I wondered where you’d got to – I thought you might have headed for the hills.’ Rupert appears in the doorway, looking a little rumpled and tipsy.

‘Don’t be daft.’ I cross the room in three steps, pushing myself into his arms and lifting my face. He kisses me, his tongue sliding into my mouth and I groan slightly against his lips. He pushes against me, his thumb flicking over my nipple through the thin fabric of my dress.

‘Follow me,’ he says, pulling me into the hallway and into the downstairs cloakroom, which is at least as big as mine and Mags’s bathroom at home.