‘Where . . . where are you?’ Bess had picked up on the smallest delay and the slightest echo on the line, nothing obvious, but subtle enough to tell her that this call was not being made from a house within the same postcode.

‘Portugal,’ Michelle said.

‘Oh lovely,’ Bess supposed, having never been. ‘Are you on holiday?’

‘No, no, we, erm . . . It’s . . . We live here a lot of the time. It’s okay.’

Bess recognised a reticence that smacked of pity and insight.

‘So whaddya get for your birthday?’

‘Can’t remember . . . not much . . . Some Maltesers . . .’

She knew, of course, about her friend’s wealth – there were many from school she still bumped into who were, if anything, a little obsessed with it. Melanie Brooks, née Hall, for one, who liked nothing more than to fill Bess in with whatever she had seen on Facebook about the Paulsons’ glamorous life – who would have thought a skip-hire business could have given them that kind of cash? But it had. ‘The Paulsons’ – a couple. Official. Michelle and Lawrence. Lawrence and Michelle. It didn’t matter that decades had passed since they tied the knot, the fact still had the power to knock the wind from her sails and brought back memories too painful to voice. And Bess certainly didn’t need Melanie’s bright-eyed commentary in the shopping aisle, gushed across their trolleys, as if they had always been mates. Advertisements for ‘Paulson’s Skips’ were on billboards, on the radio, on TV and in every newspaper she picked up; the jingle had seen her reach for the mute button that very morning. Melanie had seemed agitated in her desire to share what she knew.

‘I think it was her youngest who posted it, but they were on a massive boat, like a yacht thing – massive! And she had this whopping great Rolex on her wrist, and he still looks really good, like really good, and she was tanned and in a white bikini and Gucci shades and he was sitting there with a fat cigar and a gold bracelet! And you didn’t hear it from me’ – she leant in and spoke out of the side of her mouth – ‘but I’m sure Michelle has had work done, I mean, if not work then definitely Botox – she looks about thirty and her teeth are perfect, too perfect, if you know what I mean, so white and straight. She looked like a flippin’ Bee Gee!’

This was typical of Melanie – everything was undercut with a little meanness. It wasn’t pleasant. Bess had barely raised an eyebrow, didn’t want to give Melanie the satisfaction in the retelling of how she had looked crestfallen, regretful, envious . . .

‘We’re in Vale do Lobo – do you know it?’ Michelle asked now.

How would I know it? I’m lucky if we get a week in Clacton!