‘Alice?’ Becky chews for a moment, making exaggerated faces, then swallows and carries on. ‘Sorry, toffee stuck in teeth. She was very nice. Bit posh, in that Home Counties long swishy hair way. Mummy and Daddy had two Labradors and she probably went to Pony Club.’

‘Really? I can’t imagine Alex with someone like that. He seems way too down to earth.’

‘Yeah, but she wasn’t stuck up. I mean she was nice. Just – well, I think that she’d pretty much planned out their future, and I don’t think Alex buggering off to train as a nurse and earn approximately a quarter of what he was on as a corporate lawyer was on her wall planner.’

‘Whatever happened to for richer, for poorer?’ I ask.

Becky gives a snort of laughter. ‘In London? Are you joking?’

I think about the amount of money she’d be getting if she rented this place out, or sold it.

‘You’re the one sitting on a gold mine,’ I point out. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t got a string of handsome young gold-diggers beating a path to your door.’

‘Nobody knows I own it, that’s why,’ she says.

‘I’ve had so many people asking how I can afford to live in Notting Hill.’

‘Yeah, me too.’ She laughs. ‘What do you tell them?’

‘I say I’m staying with a family member.’

‘Me too.’

‘How’s your mum?’ I ask. ‘Haven’t heard anything about her for ages.’

‘Oh, she’s completely off-grid now. They’ve rigged up some machine on the island to make electricity by cycling on an exercise bike.’

‘Talking of which,’ I say, ‘I must give you my share of the bill.’

‘Yeah, we’ll sort it out at the weekend,’ Becky says. ‘I was thinking – Alex is off this Saturday, which would have been the big day. D’you fancy coming with me and we’ll take him out? Take his mind off things a bit? Emma’s away this weekend and I think Rob’s working, so it’d just be the three of us.’

My heart gives a little skip of happiness at the thought of spending the day with him, which is slightly pathetic. I really need to get a grip.

‘I think that’s a brilliant idea.’

Chapter Twenty-One: Jess

Chapter Twenty-One

Jess

8th June

‘A boat?’ Alex is standing in the kitchen in his socks and a crumpled, faded grey T-shirt. His jeans are slung low on his waist and when he clasps his hands together and raises them above his head in a stretch that turns into a yawn, I see a faint trail of dark hair that travels from his navel downwards to . . .