I’ve had a long, hot soak in the bath and I’m feeling infinitely better. Better, if you don’t count the fact that I’d rather be in Nepal than St Albans and that I’d rather it was Dean standing in front of me sporting an apron and a very silly grin instead of Jake.

My ex-boyfriend brandishes a wooden spoon at me. ‘I’ve made us shepherd’s pie.’

I wonder why. Never in my life have I expressed a particular partiality towards shepherd’s pie. As far as I know, Jake has never before felt moved to cook it. But then there are a lot of things that I didn’t know about Jake that I do now.

‘Are you hungry?’

I wasn’t, but I have to say that Jake’s attempt at cooking smells rather wonderful and my appetite is coaxed into life. And I have to admit that it will be nice to eat meat that isn’t yak. ‘Yes,’ I say, and in my comfiest, tattiest tracksuit and bare feet, pad after him into the kitchen.

He makes a great flourish of pulling out my chair and shuffling me into the table as I sit down. ‘Wine?’

I nod and he pours out a glass of the finest ruby red claret, letting it glug enthusiastically from the bottle. It seems ages ago since I took it in my mind to flood this place and, apart from a few unsightly bubbles on the ceiling, you’d hardly know that it happened. I sip the wine and it does taste good. Jake has used our ‘best’ glasses—the ones we get out on high-days and holidays. And I can’t help but wonder why we have so many things. Have the years we’ve been together simply been spent accumulating material possessions? We have six different sets of wineglasses, for heaven’s sake! Why do we need them? It means that every time we use them, I have to go through the rigmarole of washing and polishing them because they’re invariably covered in dust—it’s been so long since we last gave them an airing. I watch Jake as he flits animatedly round the kitchen, fishing out plates that he’s even remembered to warm and fussing with dishes that I presume are for vegetables. ‘Dinner won’t be long,’ he says with a twitch of his eye that could be a wink.

I have no idea who this chipper person is. But he’s making me nervous. ‘Fine.’