‘If you go straight home, you’ll only have to look at Jake’s miserable face,’ my friend informs me with a wag of her finger. And, I have to say, she has a valid point. My conversation with Pip has left me feeling disturbed, and I don’t really want to go out to a party to avoid contact with Jake.

‘Just one drink then,’ I say.

‘Hurray!’ they both shout.

And I know in my bones that it means I’m going to crawl home pissed and maudlin just before midnight.

All the bars in the City are crammed. Despite the fact that it’s December, there are people spilling out onto the pavement, clutching bottles of designer beer and champagne. This does not bode well. I wonder why none of them are in a rush to go home, even on a freezing-cold night like this. Perhaps too many have their equivalent of ‘Jake’ waiting at home. Or perhaps they have no one at all.

Monica decides on a suitable watering hole for us down one of the narrow back lanes—Wine and Whatnot—and, elbows out, we jostle and barge our way into the smoke-filled bar. I’m too old to be doing this. A quiet drink in a country pub is more my style these days. I’m seriously thinking about buying a Labrador to take for rambling walks, that’s how bad it is.