‘A bit?’ Merrin laughed, before plucking up courage to ask the question that would not stay quiet in her brain, rattling around until she gave voice to it. ‘Have you . . . have you seen Digby?’

She heard her friend’s slow intake of breath, as if she were deciding whether or not to come clean. ‘Yes. Once.’

Merrin sat up in the bed and pulled the pillow behind her, curling her toes inside her nightdress to warm them. This was how it worked: any snippet about him, a crumb of detail, was enough to reel her in like a fish on a hook – a fish that knew the bait was toxic, but was lured by a force of temptation too strong to resist.

‘Where?’ Her heart hammered in its desire for detail.

‘He was up at Reunion Point.’

Our place! She felt both gladdened and saddened by the fact that he couldn’t fail to think of her up there. But to what end?

‘Me and Ruby and Jarv went up for a picnic. Well, not a picnic exactly.’ Bella backtracked, as if aware of an unspoken sensitivity. ‘You know, just to . . . just to get pissed.’ She sounded flustered.

‘Well, that sounds like a good idea.’ Sarcasm wrapped her words. ‘To get pissed on a clifftop. I mean, if you have to do it at all, then Reunion Point with the rocks below and a sheer drop is probably the best place.’

‘I don’t get that pissed!’ Her friend laughed. ‘Those two, however . . .’ She let this trail and Merrin noted the use of the words ‘those two’ and felt a strange jolt of misplaced envy that her friend and her sister were having fun together, which of course she knew they would, and she wanted them to. But it was as if she had never been there, confirmation that life carried on regardless.

‘If you say so. Anyway, come on, tell me about Digby.’ To say his name out loud was not as painful as it once had been. If anything caused her immense sorrow, it was the memory of the night he had proposed, when, with wine and love sloshing in her veins, she had lain on her narrow mattress, kicking her heels with excitement, unable to believe that she had found true love and that her life was going to be rosy. Ruby had thrown a pillow at her face to make her shut up.

‘Was he with anyone?’

‘No.’

Aware that she had been holding her breath, she exhaled. This fact brought instant relief, although why it mattered to her that he was alone was frustrating. The thought of him with another girl was more than she could cope with. Instantly she pictured the posh girls who made up his gang.

‘Did he say anything to you?’