I could hear Nassim talking, his wariness turning to worry at someone else using my phone, and Basil sat down quickly on the iron next to me and his voice turned soft.

‘Yes, she’s fine, mate, she’s fine, don’t panic. She’s here with me, but there are some things that she wanted me to explain to you before she spoke to you, because, well, it’s all a little bit complicated and overwhelming here and she wasn’t sure she could talk properly, but she wants you to know everything.’

It was weird, but it was like Nassim and I needed to be reintroduced, with Basil as matchmaker. I’d made us strangers to each other. So I sat, listening to one half of the conversation about me, about everything that had happened at Bromley Cairn and then, before that, about the fact that I hadn’t been honest, that breaking up with him wasn’t exactly what I had really wanted, and how, in fact, I’d only put the distance between us because I was a bit freaked out because – ‘you ready for it, Nass?’ Basil said – because I was pregnant and I thought I could come away here and have an abortion all by myself, which obviously, according to Basil, was a really bloody stupid idea.

By the time Basil handed the phone over and politely climbed back in the window, I was crying, for myself, but also for my mum and for Danny and for Leonie and Bette and also, for poor Basil.

I got on the phone and couldn’t talk while Nassim said, ‘Oh babe, you didn’t have to deal with this all by yourself. I’m going to help you,’ until finally I managed to sob out the words, ‘Old biryani,’ and Nassim started laughing at me and couldn’t stop, no doubt in a bit of shock himself, and we giggled together and I cried and Nassim came as close to swearing as he ever did – ‘Well this is a darned shock, I must say,’ he said, and my sobs became hysterical laughter. ‘No, really,’ he said. ‘I’m massively in shock.’ And I laughed even harder at the outright gorgeousness of Nassim. ‘But I’m serious, Anna, even if you still want to break up, I’m here for this, okay? I’m here for you.’

‘I don’t want that, Nassim,’ I said.

‘Don’t want what?’

‘I don’t want to break up.’

‘Oh thank god,’ he said. ‘Ow, ow, my heart, Anna. Just ow.’

‘Sorry, sorry. I’m so sorry.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Because you’re a right idiot, and this has been pretty full-on, but this situation is me as much as it is you and I miss you and I love you and I want us to deal with this together.’

We hadn’t said it yet. Not out loud. Only on my stupid hurtful text message. I scrubbed that from my mind and considered this to be the first time. ‘I love you, too,’ I said. The word hung in the silence of the phone line between us, that word, hanging there, both of us taking it in, drawing strength from it until it was almost unbearable.