‘Sure,’ Nick said. He pulled at his cuff, unable to continue until it was straight. ‘Erin found a lump in her breast and pretty soon after we were told it was cancer. She was only thirty-two and it didn’t seem real.’ He paused a moment before adding, ‘I should explain that Erin and I weren’t married, but I asked Justine and she said it would be OK with you guys.’

Justine nodded. ‘I told Nick we recognise the love between two people and not what’s written on a certificate. Our differences bring us together, they don’t set us apart,’ she said. ‘Lisa and I had a civil partnership, but I’ve never been treated any differently in this group.’

‘Not marrying Erin is one of my deepest regrets,’ Nick admitted. ‘I was stupid. I didn’t appreciate what I had until it was too late. She had treatment, but there were secondaries and she never did get the all-clear we were praying for. The last thing Erin said to me was not to waste my life thinking about what might have been. I couldn’t believe how brave and noble she was, right up to the end.’

‘I’m sure you were brave too,’ said a woman sitting next to Steve. Nadiya was another thirty-something with three children to bring up after her husband had drowned on an ill-fated boat trip.

‘If you’d seen me, you wouldn’t have thought so. I was useless to her.’

‘My husband had cancer too,’ Tara explained. ‘And I remember feeling that sense of impotence. It was their fight, their suffering, and we were the bystanders.’

‘How did you cope?’ Nick asked.

‘I have no idea,’ Tara said, but she glanced at Justine and added, ‘Actually I do. I had family and friends like Justine who looked after me and my baby so I could look after Mike in his last months. I’m sure I appeared brave, but I was a mess inside.’

‘Two years on and I’m still a mess,’ Nick said, head down as he tugged at his shirt sleeve. He sniffed back tears before adding, ‘Sorry.’

There was a pause that no one tried to fill until it became clear that Nick had said as much as he could for his first meeting. One or two people glanced at April. It was her turn, but after listening to Nick, her emotions were pinballing between the pain of her loss and her anger.

Steve was close enough to hear her gulp as she struggled to swallow a mouthful of cold coffee and he offered her a reprieve. ‘It’s not all gloom and doom,’ he said. ‘There are some of us who make new relationships work, aren’t there Tara? Where’s Iain tonight?’

If April wasn’t mistaken, there was a blush rising in Tara’s cheeks. ‘At home looking after the girls.’