‘I know. And I do appreciate that. If you hadn’t been here…’ I thought for a moment. ‘Well, if you hadn’t been here, none of this would have happened, but also if you hadn’t been here then I’d probably have sat and stewed tonight, turning it over and over in my mind until it became the only thing I was thinking about, so thank you.’

‘You’re very welcome.’

‘And I am sorry if you’ve had extra grief from your mother over this.’

His broad smile warmed the room, not to mention parts of me that I wasn’t going to acknowledge right now, or probably ever. ‘Believe me, I can handle my mother these days, and I’m pretty sure you can too.’

‘I’d rather not, though.’

‘Then that makes two of us. Come on, sit down. I’ll serve that. You’ve had quite the day.’

I flicked a tea towel at his backside and made my way to the table.

The next couple of weeks went by fairly uneventfully. I did my best to put newspaper reports and internet gossip out of my mind and stayed away from the web as much as possible. Hopefully, as others had said, people had found something far more interesting to talk about by now. I hadn’t managed to go out beyond the safety of my garden again just yet. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, but there was still something holding me back. I’d had a spurt of bravery, accompanying Jack to his parents’ and then exploring wider in the world, but I seemed to have taken a step backwards. The newspaper story about me and Jack had thrown a spanner in the works and reignited some insecurities. Somewhere in my brain a bit of logic was saying, if you keep out of sight, then they won’t talk about you. But there was another part of my brain that was hugely frustrated and wanted to kick the first part. In the meantime, I’d baked several cakes, bursting with calories, in the hope that it might spur me on to find the determination to walk it off. So far, however, I’d just ended up doing laps of the garden.

Jack waved as he passed the kitchen window. He wore a peaked cap, shading his eyes from the lowering sun of a beautiful spring day, and I was busy washing salad in the sink as he came in. I turned to say hi, then froze.

‘What is that?’

‘That’s Clive.’

I gave Jack a patient look that probably didn’t have an awful lot of patience in it. ‘Clive appears to be a golden retriever.’

‘Clive is a golden retriever, aren’t you, boy?’ he said, fussing with the dog who actually appeared to be smiling. Could dogs smile?

‘OK,’ I began again. ‘Let me rephrase this. What is Clive doing in my house?’

‘He needs a home.’

‘What’s wrong with his current home?’ I asked, as Jack pulled a small towel from his back pocket and gently wiped Clive’s feet, watching as the dog immediately lifted up each paw in turn ready for the procedure.