‘I dunno. I only met her a few times at work events. She always seemed quite nice, in a sort of horsey, Surrey, I’ve-got-posh-parents sort of way. Bit like Alex used to be.’

‘Did he?’ I ask, surprised.

‘God, yeah.’

I stop suddenly in the street and someone walking crashes into me from behind, swears, and then carries on, making a detour round me. I’m still not very good at the not-stopping-on-London-streets thing.

‘Alex doesn’t seem like a posh sort of person. He’s . . .’

‘He’s lovely, yeah. But before his dad died he was much more like your stereotypical law type. Nice suit, pretty girlfriend, liked a night out at the Sloaney Pony.’

Despite having heard about the ‘old Alex’ a few times, I struggle to reconcile the laid-back, slightly scruffy, bearded, permanently exhausted Alex with the image she’s creating.

‘That’s really weird. I can’t imagine that at all.’

‘I don’t think Alice could imagine him the way he is now. She’d have that beard off him in about five seconds flat, for one thing.’

After picking up Pimm’s, cucumber, a punnet of strawberries and some lemonade, we head back to Albany Road.

‘What d’you think’s going on in there?’ Becky nods towards our house as we approach.

‘Have you got any change yet?’ says the little girl from the lemonade stall.

‘Sorry, no,’ I say. ‘Unless you take credit cards?’

She giggles. ‘I did ask Daddy if he’d let us but he said no.’

‘You’ll have to catch me after payday, then,’ I say, only half joking. I’m still lurching precariously from one month to the other. Becky’s paid for the Pimm’s, which is just as well because I’ve pretty much run out of money and there’s still quite a lot of the month left. I clock the expensive-looking car parked opposite our house and wonder if it belongs to Alice.

‘Is that . . .?’

Becky nods. ‘Yep. You can see how downgrading to hoofing it on the tube on a student loan wasn’t really her style.’

Inside, Rob’s dishing up spiced chicken kebabs on a bed of colourful salad leaves. There’s no sign of Emma, or Alex, or Alice, for that matter. I can’t help feeling angry that we’ve arranged a day to take his mind off something and Alice has come along and put a massive spanner in the works.

‘They’re outside in the garden.’ Rob nods his head towards the door.

‘I’ll make the Pimm’s,’ says Becky, quickly. ‘You go and size up the atmosphere out there.’

Surprisingly, Emma’s on her hands and knees, pulling up weeds from a flower border. She’s gathered quite a pile, heaped up beside her.

‘I didn’t have you down as a gardener,’ I say, nodding at the pair of battered-looking green gardening gloves she’s wearing.