‘Esther, can you call? Need a word. When you have a moment.’ He sounded irritated.

Esther yawned, and opened her book. She was serene. She was self-reliant. She was not at anyone’s beck and call, and certainly not in the mood to be summoned to a bed in Amsterdam – or Timbuktu, or wherever the hell he was this time. She was also too knackered even to read, she realised, putting the book down and turning the light out. Even so, sleep took a while to arrive, interrupted by ripples of wonderment at the turn-arounds of the last few days and at the notion that the trickiest things could work out, if you stuck to what you knew was right, and gave them time.

48

When the children were small, Esther had loved the period between Christmas and New Year. With the manic build-up and absurd pressure of the Big Day past, it had been the loveliest of limbos, with leftovers to snack on and no work or school or college timetables to rush around for. Lucas would hole up in his study, while Dylan and Lily were allowed to lounge for half the day in pyjamas, playing with their new presents, requiring barely any parenting beyond being shooed into the garden for air and some refereeing over the occasional fall-out. A deserved pause, it had always felt, before the start of the whirligig after the turn of the year.

Waking up to the London drizzle, however, groggy from her too brief, too deep a sleep, Esther immediately sensed the danger of feeling nothing but the limbo and none of the relaxation. She wrote a letter to Viv, to stave it off – a proper letter, on proper paper – starting many times, with attempts at flourishing prose and convoluted arguments, before letting the words pour out exactly as they wanted.

Dearest Vivvie,

Point one: “Breaking up” with a friend is not actually allowed, under international law.

Point two: I bet Brian is feeling as crap and fed up about it all as me (and you).

Point three: No offence to your professional skills, but surely sometimes digging out innermost thoughts can turn no-biggy deals into huge issues.

#Just Saying. #ImissyouandImissUS.

NB: Please add CALLING ESTHER to your New Year Resolutions List, which you will obviously be working on, and which I know will start with packing in those ciggies. Mine, you will be impressed to hear, is already very long, and includes GETTING AS FIT AS VIV, which I’m going to start right now by jogging to a post box.

PS. I also know you are bursting to hear all the deets about finding Dylan

PPS. Lucas came on to me and I said NO! (after a snog)

PPPS. Did I mention I bloody miss you?