‘I am not. Well, maybe just a touch tipsy, but it’s not that. It’s— My God, Frank. Do you realise I hadn’t seen Deirdre in almost thirty years? How on earth did that happen?’

Dad says, ‘So it went well in the end, yeah?’

Mum laughs, breathless and giddy. Her coat hangs open; underneath she’s wearing her slim navy dress flashed with white, the gold necklace Dad gave her at Christmas. She’s still collapsed against the wall, bag dumped on the floor at her feet. Holly gets that pulse of wariness again. Mum always kisses her the instant one of them gets through the door.

‘It was wonderful. I was absolutely terrified – honestly, at the door of the bar I almost turned around and went home. If it hadn’t worked, if we’d just sat there making small talk like acquaintances . . . I wouldn’t have been able to bear it. Dee and I and this other girl Miriam, back in school we were like you and your friends, Holly. We were inseparable.’

One of her ankles is bent outwards above the high-heeled navy leather shoe, leaning her lopsided like a teenager. Holly says – Thirty years, never, we’d never – ‘So how come you haven’t seen her?’

‘Deirdre’s parents emigrated to America, when we left school. She went to college there. It wasn’t like now, there wasn’t any e-mail; phone calls cost the earth, and letters took weeks. We did try – she’s still got all my letters, can you imagine? She brought them along, all these things I’d forgotten all about, boys and nights out and fights with our parents and . . . I know I’ve got hers somewhere – in Mum and Dad’s attic, maybe, I’ll have to look – I can’t have thrown them away. But it was college and we were busy, and the next thing we knew we were completely out of touch . . .’

Mum’s long lovely face is transparent, things blowing across it bright and swift as falling leaves. She doesn’t look like Holly’s mum, like anyone’s mum. For the first time ever, Holly looks at her and thinks: Olivia.

‘But today – God, it was as if we’d seen each other a month ago. We laughed so hard, I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard. We used to laugh like that all the time. The things we remembered – we had this silly alternative verse for the school song, ridiculous stuff, dirty jokes, and we sang it together, right there in the bar. We remembered all the words. I hadn’t thought of that song in thirty years, I’d swear it wasn’t even in my mind any more, but one look at Dee and the whole thing came back.’