Max was tight-lipped about everything to do with the party, and it was driving Zadie completely mad. Every time she came up with an idea – a game they should play, a cocktail she wanted to make – he told her that it was all under control, that he had it covered and that, for once, he wanted her to be a guest, not a host. Chloe could tell that Zadie was trying to be gracious, that she knew it was Max’s birthday and that therefore it should be entirely up to him how things were handled. But parties were how Zadie showed her love to people, and every time Max told her he didn’t want her to be involved she seemed to move a little further away from him. Chloe wanted to tell him to include Zadie, to let her in on the secret. But he seemed to so enjoy being the only person who had planned this party, and a little part of her was frightened that if she were to tell him off he might take back the invitation she was so proud to have received.

At last, the Saturday morning arrived. Chloe stood outside Archer Crescent with a small suitcase, pulling her coat around her. The spring sunshine looked far warmer than it was. She took out her phone, checking to see whether she was going to be treated to another guilt-inducing voicemail from her mother, asking why she never rang.

‘Bang goes my theory.’

Chloe looked up. Of course, it was Rav. ‘Theory?’

‘I’d been telling myself that you’d almost certainly lost your phone, and that was why you’d gone silent on me.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m joking. You don’t need to apologize.’

‘I am sorry, though. Things have been—’

‘Yes, with me, too.’

‘Still, this should be fun.’

‘Knowing Max, it’ll be something quite extraordinary.’

Rav was right. A couple of sleek silver people-carriers arrived on the dot of eleven o’clock. The group – Chloe and Rav, Max and Zadie, the deputy rugby captain and his girlfriend, five of Max’s best friends from school and their girlfriends. The drive took a couple of hours, but before Chloe could finish reading Heart of Darkness, which she was supposed to be discussing in her tutorial on Tuesday, they had pulled up at a beautiful twisty-turny house.