‘No, I don’t. Is it lovely weather? Must be hot this time of year?’ She pictured the two of them sunbathing with baby oil slathered on their skin, burning to a crisp – oh, the damage! The wrinkles, the carelessness! I remember our tanning hours when the little square of garden at my mum and dad’s house used to get the sun . . . and we’d sit, staring at its crisping rays . . . Bess didn’t feel confident enough to mention this; it seemed a bit pathetic now that Michelle lived in warmth and splendour – their childish imitation of living the high life a little embarrassing now her friend had the real thing.

‘Yeah, it’s lovely most of the time, bit too hot for me right now, hence my morning walk along the coast road, where there’s a bit of a breeze. I’m never missed – this is when Lawrie plays his golf.’

Michelle had done it. Mentioned his name – her husband. She had brought the man who had driven the wedge between them into the conversation, the boy who had tossed a grenade into the heart of their fantastic relationship and who was now the elephant in the room.

‘And he’s . . . you’re . . . you’re both well?’ Bess cringed and screwed her eyes tight shut. Her mind faltering, she struggled to find words that were safe and not incriminating, trying to act normally while her stomach churned with something that felt a lot like fear.

I’m scared, Philip, I’m scared . . .

‘Yeah, we’re great. Getting on a bit, but still like a couple of old bookends!’

‘I . . . I like a nice walk too.’ Bess changed the topic, picturing the grey jaunt she sometimes took up the shops and back when they had run out of milk or to get a sliced loaf for Mario’s sandwiches. It was about as far from a coastal view with the Portuguese sun on her back as you could get. Bess felt hollow, a little inadequate and terribly left behind as she listened.

‘Even winter is bearable. I remember you were always such a sun-worshipper. You didn’t go and live in California then?’ Her friend laughed softly, and this shared memory was enough to make her stomach fold with loss. They had been so close, and Bess knew she had never had a mate like Michelle before or since, thinking how hard it had been to reach out the hand of friendship, knowing when she met new people that her reputation might have preceded her. As she looked through the frosted glass in the front door out over the cul de sac and watched Mr Draper watering the carnations in his plastic tub, she knew that her sixteen-year-old self would have described the place in which she lived as a bit ‘Ronnie’.

‘No, not quite,’ she said in the end. ‘But you did – you followed the sun.’