It was a thought which had made a difficult day dire, and as I shifted uncomfortably in one of The Hayes’s large leather armchairs and awaited Ruby’s arrival later that evening, my ability to think calmly and rationally was demolished by a wrecking-ball of anxiety regarding my long-term professional future and my scarily imminent, and highly personal, meeting with Ruby.

Staring down at the two small glasses of red wine I had bought and placed on the low table in front of me, I found myself unable to think through what I might say to her or to guess at what she might be about to say to me.

Fighting a new and rising sense of panic, I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly and forced myself to focus and take stock of the situation.

However, as just three seconds of ‘taking stock’ officially confirmed the situation to be, as I had suspected all along, absolutely bloody awful, I decided to ditch cool analysis in favour of the rapid consumption of alcohol. Sadly, I had managed just two mouthfuls of wine, neither of which had hit home, when Ruby arrived.

‘Oh my God and I thought I was early!’ she said, appearing at my side and dropping her bag to the ground. ‘What time did you get here?’ she asked, bending low to kiss my cheek.

‘Erm,’ was all I managed, as she flopped down opposite me.

‘For me?’ She leaned forward and picked up the glass of wine. ‘Bit small,’ she laughed, ‘but thanks and cheers.’ She raised her drink in my direction and downed half of it. ‘I so need this. Haven’t stopped today.’ Letting out a contented sigh, she leaned back in her chair. ‘So, how are you? What’s the gossip? You always say everything is fine, which is great. Just hope you’re being truthful with me.’

‘I am,’ I said, tensing slightly at her hypocritical and hugely ironic expectation of honesty. ‘How is Bath?’

I posed the question wondering whether it might be possible to get through the evening without reference to either Cameron or Jason, because there was still a small but significant part of me that felt just fine with that option. After all, what was so wrong with letting a toxic relationship gradually fade, rather than squeezing it to the point of explosion, like an angry zit best left alone? No messy public confrontation, no distressing unpleasantness, no red wine all over my favourite pale-blue silk shirt… No closure either, of course, but then maybe closure was as overrated as taking stock.

I picked up my glass and drained it.

‘Bath is great,’ she declared. ‘I just feel so… appreciated, in a way that I was never appreciated by Alison.’

‘She appreciated you,’ I said, twisting in my chair and looking towards the bar, wondering about the possibility of getting another drink.