‘Nice of you to join us,’ she adds, but I’m not sure that she’s being sincere. Monica is a relocated Liverpudlian and I’ve always found that they tend towards aggression when riled. In theory, Monica is my boss, but she very rarely chooses to exert any authority over me and is generally one of the girls—albeit a rather short-tempered one.

‘You look dreadful,’ Charlotte says through her low-tar lungful. ‘Are you okay?’

I move away so that I won’t be damaged by inadvertent, passive inhalation. I shake my head. ‘Jake’s gone,’ I say.

‘Gone!’ they chorus in unison. ‘Jake?’

‘The latest IVF’s ended in a big fat zip,’ I explain with a wobbly lip. ‘I don’t think he could take it. He’s gone to stay with Pip for a few days.’

‘I wouldn’t mind a few days with Pip,’ Charlotte confides.

‘Get in the queue.’ I’m never quite sure what women see in Pip, but a lot of them do see it. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘Come on.’ My friends have one last hefty drag on their cigarettes and then stub them out on the pavement—recklessly risking a fifty-quid fine. Charlotte takes my arm. ‘Let’s get you some of that vile brew they call coffee and you can tell us all about it.’

The offices of My Baby and My Divorce are wonderful. We’re housed on the eleventh floor of a huge chrome-and-glass monolith on the South Bank, overlooking the murky expanse of the Thames. For all my lowly position, I’ve managed to bag myself a desk right near the vast window and can spend hours watching the river rippling by. Nothing on this earth would persuade me to give up this coveted space. In the summer I fry, but we have so few hot days, who cares? Today the low, reluctant winter sun is playing hide-and-seek behind the white iron skeleton of the London Eye and encouraging the water to look grey and glum. I’d like to think it’s coming out in sympathy with me.

‘So.’ Monica plonks a plastic cup in front of me. She and Charlotte sit on my desk. ‘Tell all.’

And I recount my story while casting occasional wistful looks out over the Embankment. Even as I’m filling in the gory details and slagging off my partner in life with much gusto, I know that in my heart when I get home tonight Jake will be there. He’ll have realised that it was all a terrible mistake and will be waiting for me full of remorse, hopefully clutching a bunch of suitably expensive and nicely arranged flowers and wearing a mortified expression. In all, he will have come to his senses the minute he realised what he was about to lose.

‘Well.’ Monica scratches her chin as I finish. She and Charlotte exchange a worried look. ‘It’s not good, is it?’