I slip off my rucksack. I have no intention of showing her my tins of soup. I have never carried a heavy weight on my back in my life, so I thought I’d better put a bit of practice in. ‘That’s why I’m getting myself into shape.’

‘Wait, wait!’ Edie says, a cloud crossing over her eyebrows. She fixes me with a censorious stare. ‘This isn’t because the Amazonian-type woman who’s nicked your boyfriend is going there?’ My sister’s eyes bug out of her head. ‘You’ve not booked on the same expedition? You’re not going to stalk her up hills?’

‘I’m not that mad,’ I huff. Although I have wondered myself. I’d been poring over all the brochures I’ve acquired with the thought that anything she can do, I can do better. And then I realised I probably couldn’t when it came to climbing mountains, but by then I was hooked on the idea of getting out of my box to do something different. I’m missing Jake so much that I can’t just sit around here waiting for him to come back. I could, however, have opted for a few weeks in a five-star health spa in Thailand instead. But it’s a bit late to be thinking like that now. I flop down in the chair next to Edie. ‘Do you think I’d put myself through this extreme privation just to prove a point?’

‘What extreme privation?’

‘Well, I’m going to have to walk everywhere.’

Edie looks somewhat less than sympathetic. ‘That’s usual for a trek, I’d assume.’

‘And I’ll be living in a tent.’

‘A tent? Now I do need a strong drink. You’ve never been in a tent in your entire life.’

‘I have so!’

‘Once, Lyssa,’ my sister reminds me. ‘One night. We bleated and badgered Mum until she let us borrow the next-door neighbours’ tent to sleep in the garden—one measly night—and then not even the whole of it. We spent weeks persuading her, and you—you—chickened out at half past ten because you thought the bogeyman was going to come and get us.’

‘I was twelve. You were eight. You kept telling me ghost stories until I was scared shitless. And now I’m older and wiser and know that the bogeyman doesn’t exist.’ The meanest men in the world you’ll come across are generally the ones you live with.

‘Where are you going to plug in your hairdryer?’

Ooo. Hadn’t thought about that one. My sister gives me a knowing look. ‘The Himalayas are no place for super-smooth straightening irons,’ she says with menace.

Gulp.

‘How many hours a day are you going to trek?’