‘And your lovely present, I haven’t even said a thank-you,’ Esther cut in, glad Viv couldn’t see the stained and page-swollen state of the journal since its morning dousing, nor the sneering ‘happy bloody birthday to me’, now scrawled in smudgy biro across its opening page. ‘I am an ungrateful cow. Fact number two.’

‘Esther, stop this.’

‘I didn’t want to see Carole anyway,’ Esther went on, despite having made the point already and despite Viv barely knowing Shona, let alone her partner. ‘I don’t like her much, and I don’t think she likes me. I just thought Shona and I… you know…’ She pressed her soggy tissue to her nose, feeling again the stab of disappointment when the call had come through; standing in the kitchen in her for-best, blue, linen dress, good-to-go two hours ahead of schedule, toes painted to distract from the scruffy flip-flops, her face done up as well as she knew how.

‘Oh no, poor Carole,’ she had said as soon as Shona had described the temperature and raging sore throat. ‘Summer flu maybe?’ She had shifted to the kitchen window and fiddled absently with the miniature Wedgwood pot that lived on the sill, an early gift from Lucas, too dear to have qualified for a charity-shop run.

‘Flu. Exactly.’ Shona had sounded as if she were directing a jury. ‘I could be a carrier. With viruses you just can’t be too careful, can you?’

‘No, you can’t,’ Esther had echoed, feeling flattened, and finding the pot somehow falling through her fingers in the same instant. It had exploded with a dull thwack on the stone tiled floor. Esther had counted the scattered shards as Shona had talked out her apologies, and then crawled around picking up each fragment, making a little pile of them on the windowsill.

‘Have you eaten anything, sweetie?’ Viv coaxed.

‘Biscuits, mainly. And ice cream. And some vinegary old Pinot Grigio.’ Esther smiled ruefully, sniffing now and all cried out. Back in the day, it had been Viv who was more prone to a messy life, she remembered suddenly – boys, pregnancy scares, divorcing parents – until she went north and found psychology and Brian. ‘Sorry, Viv.’ She rubbed under eyes where she knew her heavy evening make-up would be in smudges. ‘Thank you for letting me rant. I’m totally fine and must let you go.’ As she spoke, Brian, who had made a speedy exit once Esther’s distressed state became apparent, put his sunny, handsomely rugged face round the bedroom door.

‘Sorry to interrupt, ladies, I just need to get… ah, there it is.’ He snatched up a short, thick black cable from the floor, pausing to add, ‘Hey, Vivvie, if Esther’s feeling blue, she could join us in France for a few days, couldn’t she? We’ve got five weeks, after all.’

The pair exchanged a look, too fleeting to read, but Esther was already saying no.