‘I don’t know!’ Bess laughed, and her old friend joined in. It was like a warm, rounded pebble cast into water, breaking the surface, sending out ripples to ease the tension and uniting them. They could always make each other laugh. Bess knew she hadn’t laughed as hard or as carelessly since she’d done so with this woman by her side, as they gripped their stomachs and, with tears sprouting, made a desperate dash to the bathroom.

‘Trouble is, Bessie, I still think I’m sixteen until I look in the mirror and think, Jesus, my nan’s come to visit! But no, it’s me.’

‘Ah, your lovely nan . . .’ Bess remembered the old lady who had commandeered her grandsons’ bedroom and sent them to sleep in a caravan. The old lady who used to try to escape at any and every opportunity. Bess pictured her with her rolled-up swimming towel under her arm and in borrowed wellington boots.

‘I still miss her,’ Michelle whispered. ‘It’s not very often I speak to anyone who knew her. Mum too, she passed away a few years ago now.’

‘I did hear that, Michelle, and I was sorry.’

‘Oh, it happens, right? The one certainty, but she had a lovely life – she was always with us, used to joke she was a lady of leisure, and she bloody was. Dad’s in a great flat with help on hand and he’s doing well, considering.’

Bess smiled at the thought of Michelle’s dad, who had been at death’s door for over five decades, still going strong, and her mum living the high life. No wonder she had wanted her daughter to marry money . . . The irony of how things had turned out was not lost on her. She looked at her narrow hallway and the chipped paint on her front door and wondered how close she herself had come to having a very different life.

‘And your mum and dad . . . are they still . . . ?’ Michelle’s tone was hesitant.

‘Both still very much around.’

‘But not still playing the harmonica on your birthday, surely?’

‘They’ve done that this very morning over the phone.’

‘That’s hilarious!’

Their laughter was familiar and emotional and was followed by a beat of silence. Bess held the phone close to her face. Both were seemingly at a loss as to how to continue. Silence wrapped them, as words too fragile to voice lay flat on her tongue: How I have missed you, my friend . . . How I wish sometimes to go back to those days when we sat on the sofa, eating sweets, singing songs, pondering our glittering futures, dreaming of pop stars and all that lay ahead for us . . . My dearest, dearest friend . . .