“Dumping me, dumping Frances, moving on. That it?”

“Stop it,” I said. “We weren’t married. We slept with each other twice. It was a mistake. I apologize. Now you have to go.”

He put his glass down on top of the chart. “Right,” he said. “Right.” He stared at me. “You’re not how I thought you’d be.”

THREE MINUTES AFTER Johnny had left, Gwen arrived. She burst into tears on the doorstep and I pulled her into the house, shut the door and hugged her until her sobs subsided. “I’m such an idiot,” she said.

“What’s he done?”

“Nothing.” And she gave a long, disconsolate sniff.

“Come and tell me about this nothing. I’ll make us supper, unless you’ve eaten already. Wine? I’ve got an open bottle.”

“Thanks.”

“Tell me, then.”

“He was with this woman for ages and she went off with one of his mates. It took him ages to get over it. You’ve met him—he’s such a big softie. Anyway, she got in touch with him because that relationship’s over. He’s with her now, ‘comforting’ her. I think she wants him back.”

“He told you all this?”

“Not the last bit.”

“Does he want to go back to her?”

“He swears it’s me he wants. But I don’t know whether to believe him. You know my luck with men. Can I have a tissue?”

“Help yourself. Here’s your wine.”

“Am I being an idiot?”

“Who am I to say? All I’m sure of is that he’d be an idiot to leave you—and by the sound of it he’s being totally straightforward with you. Plus he seems pretty devoted to you.”

“Do you think so?”

“All I know is what he looked like to me: kind, honorable, besotted.”

“Yes. Sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I was sitting alone in my flat and suddenly I couldn’t bear it.”

“I understand.”

“It’s been so nice, being in a couple.”

Gwen gave me a hug. We chinked glasses. I cooked the chicken and divided it between us with a bag of salad leaves. It was rather a tiny meal for two emotionally drained and ravenous women, but we finished off with the mango and lots of chocolate bourbons, then sat on the sofa together with my duvet over us and watched a DVD before I called a cab to take her home.

I WOKE WITH a start and looked at the clock beside me. It was just past three. I must have been dreaming about Greg, because I had an image of him throwing grapes into the air and trying to catch them in his mouth but they spun everywhere. Perhaps what Johnny had said about fasting at Ramadan had prompted it. It had been a comic dream, but happy. I lay in the dark and tried to hold the picture in my mind.