He wouldn’t tell me much at first, refused to divulge many details. Then a couple of hours ago, Izzy came down in her nightie, looking a bit bleary but pleased. ‘Dad’s still here,’ she said with a smile.

‘I’m going soon,’ Andy said, giving me a quick look. A hopeful look, as if willing me to say, Oh, you don’t have to. You can stay the night.

But I didn’t. I coaxed her back to bed, and now he is finally telling me what happened with him and the Celestial One.

‘I think I went a bit mad,’ he says. ‘It was never right. I wasn’t thinking straight.’

I frown at him, knowing he’s being as honest as he can be. ‘You thought you were in love with her?’

He nods. ‘I did. I am so sorry.’ His eyes fill with tears. ‘I kept trying to stop it, you know, before I left you. It was always, “I’ll just see her one more time, to be a fair and decent person and to end it properly. We’ll have coffee and that’ll be that.”’

But it was never just coffee. ‘Estelle would get so upset,’ he says now, ‘and swear that she was just about to leave her husband. But she never did. She couldn’t bring herself to do it.’

So, despite the promises, Andy hung on waiting, and finally it was him who ended it – on omelette night. ‘No, of course it was nothing to do with that,’ he says, frowning. ‘But it had just happened when she saw you. She’d just left the flat for the last time.’

If only I’d known when I’d been tottering about drunkenly with my eggy mess. But then, what would I have done – gone up there and gloated? Or coaxed him back home?

He reaches for my hand. ‘I realised I’d made a mistake,’ he says as I pull mine away. His touch feels so odd now.

‘So, you finished it because she wouldn’t leave her husband and commit to you?’

Andy hesitates. ‘I didn’t want to be with her anymore, Viv. I only wanted you.’ He squirms uncomfortably, and I’m feeling oddly dispassionate as the real story unfolds. All I can think is: Well, that wasn’t the best decision to make: leaving your wife and daughter and upsetting your son, to wait dutifully for your new girlfriend to leave her husband … Only to find she never would.

As a punchline, I’m sure he’d agree it was disappointing.

‘And … there’s something else I have to ask you,’ I add.

He nods. ‘You can ask me anything you want. Anything at all.’

‘Okay, so your flat …’

A here-we-go kind of look crosses his face. ‘Yep. That flat.’