‘So Joanne was all, “OhmyGod, Gemma, you are so cynical, what is wrong with you, are you jealous or something?” Chris had her completely convinced this was some huge romance.’

Julia mimes puking. A couple of Colm’s guys, up towards the front of the bus, are turning around to look at them, grinning and talking louder and shouldering each other. Gemma doesn’t smile back, or do that annoying thing where she pretends to ignore them and sticks her boobs out; instead she rolls her eyes and lowers her voice.

‘Like, she was starting to wonder if he was the love of her life. She kept talking about how someday she could tell their kids how they used to sneak away for these little secret meetings.’

‘Adorable,’ Julia says. ‘So how come she’s not showing off her engagement ring?’

Gemma says flatly, ‘She wasn’t shagging him, so he dumped her. Not even face to face. One evening they were supposed to meet up in the park, and Chris just didn’t show up and didn’t answer his phone. She texted him like ten times, trying to figure out what happened – at first she thought he had to be in hospital or something. A couple of days later, we were down at the Court and he walked straight past us. Saw us and looked the other way.’

Julia stashes away the image of Joanne’s face, to enjoy later. ‘That’s shitty.’

‘Yeah, you think?’

‘How come she wouldn’t shag him?’ Julia’s never thought of Joanne as the save-it-for-marriage type.

‘Well, she was going to. She’s not frigid or anything. She was just holding off so he wouldn’t think she was a slut, and to make him more into her. She’d actually decided to go for it, she was just waiting for one of them to have a free gaff at the weekend – she wasn’t about to do it in the Field like some skanger. Only she hadn’t said that to Chris, because she wanted him on his toes. So he got sick of waiting and dumped her.’

‘So the point of this story is, basically,’ Julia says, ‘Joanne’s still all into Chris, so that makes him her property and everyone else in the world should back off. Did I miss anything?’

‘Yeah, actually,’ Gemma says, giving her a fish-eyed stare. ‘You did.’

She waits till Julia says, with a noisy sigh, ‘OK. What?’

‘Joanne’s tough.’

‘Joanne’s a bitch.’

Gemma shrugs. ‘Whatever. She’s not soft. But what Chris did, that totally wrecked her head. Afterwards, she had to pretend she was sick for a whole week, so she could stay in our room.’

Julia remembers that. Back at the time she considered telling people Joanne had come out in huge pus-filled face boils, but she wasn’t interested enough to put in the effort. ‘What was she, crying?’