I opened my phone and sure enough, two solid bars, enough for a call. I shook my head at Basil.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘It’s even better out here.’ Basil opened the window onto a jutting bit of roof provided by the level below and stepped out into the moonlight.

‘Come on,’ he said, holding out a hand. ‘It’s not as narrow as it looks – it’s perfectly safe if you stick by the wall.’

I climbed out and around the corner and sat on a surprisingly largish strip of corrugated iron with my back to the stone wall. The moon was behind the clouds and the whole landscape was softly illuminated. Three bars on my phone.

‘I can’t believe it.’

Basil patted me on the leg then headed back to the window and began to climb back in. I pulled up Nassim’s number on my phone, but after that gutsy gesture I found I could only stare at it. Suddenly I so wanted to tell him everything, absolutely everything, but I had no idea where to start. I really didn’t know how to tell him. And with all the other stuff that had happened too, how could I even begin to form all those words about myself? It had been hard enough at the hospital reception, just saying ‘I’m pregnant’ without explaining anything else. And the last time Nassim and I had communicated . . . well, maybe he wouldn’t want to know after all. Maybe he didn’t want to hear from me. Maybe he never wanted to hear from me ever again.

Basil paused midway through the window and looked back at me. ‘Do you want me to call him for you?’ he said.

And weirdly, so weirdly, it was the right thing to do, to get someone else to tell my secrets to Nassim before he had to deal with my feelings on it. To give him a moment to have feelings of his own and to decide whether he wanted to talk to me or not.

‘Would you do that?’ I said. ‘Could you do that?’

‘Of course, cuz. I’m your family now, I look out for you. Give me your damn phone.’ He came back around the corner, reached for my phone and then brandished it like a weapon. ‘I’m gonna call this absent Romeo of yours and set this whole mess straight.’

I sat awkwardly on the iron roof as Basil squatted next to me, jigging up and down on his haunches. Without hesitation he pressed the call button I had been staring at, and now he was bouncing up and down while the ring sounded. I watched nervously and gratefully as he, my funny cousin, did this beautiful thing for me.

I heard Nassim pick up on the other end. I couldn’t hear his words, but I heard the wariness in his voice on receiving a call from my number.

‘Hi Nassim,’ said Basil. ‘You don’t know me but I’m a friend of Anna’s – I’m her cousin really, so nothing for you to get jealous about, which is lucky for you because you wouldn’t believe how hot I am.’ Oh my god. Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe this was just a terrible, terrible idea. ‘No, but seriously, Nass – I can call you Nass, can’t I?’