‘I miss home,’ she said.

I didn’t know anyone who was more different to me than Lola. Most noticeably, she was a pathological people-pleaser – hell-bent on making sure every single person she came into contact with not only liked her but adored her and felt sensational about themselves in her presence. And not just people she knew – she put in the same effort to woo total strangers who she would only be in contact with for a few minutes. We once went on holiday to Marrakech and when ‘haggling’ for a vase in the medina she offered the man 250 dirhams more than he originally asked for. Another time she withdrew the last thirty pounds in her bank account on a night out, gave it to a homeless man and sat down to talk to him about his life. He, quite understandably, told me he’d give me the thirty pounds if I would take her away from him.

Sometimes I found this habit of hers slightly pathetic and frustrating; other times I had admiration for it. I was regularly envious of the patience Lola could exercise in the face of other people’s inanity and incompetence. She was fantastically good at small talk; at listening to people blither about something I knew she wasn’t interested in; at complimenting women on their ugly shoes at a party because she could tell they were in need of a compliment. I was often accused of being irritable or short-fused, whereas she never got angry about anything – which wasn’t just down to her benevolence, she was mainly too busy either daydreaming about herself or worrying about everyone liking her. She was both the most tragically insecure and beguilingly confident person I had ever met.

And she loved fun, which was infectious. Her pursuit of new experiences was a preoccupation, and her permanent state of being single had given her the time to make an ongoing project of her own life. In the time I’d known her she’d learnt calligraphy, photography and origami; how to make her own ceramics, yogurt and essential oil blends; attended classes for martial arts, Russian and trapeze. She’d undergone five tattoos, crowbarring a fake meaning on to every fey, insignificant doodle; moved flats seven times and jumped out of a plane twice. I had come to realize this was not evidence of Lola’s frivolity, but was instead her tribute to what she saw as the one great opportunity of being alive.

‘I’m so stressed about the summer coming to an end,’ she said, pulling out a half-empty packet of menthol cigarettes and withdrawing one with her teeth.

‘Why “stressed”?’

‘I’m worried I haven’t made the most of it.’

‘You’ve been to four music festivals.’

‘I’ve got to get to Burning Man next year.’ She shook her head worriedly as she lit up. The early evening sun bounced off every ring on each of her fingers holding the white-tipped cigarette and she inhaled deeply. ‘And you’ve got to come with me, it might be our last chance.’

‘No. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you.’

‘Please.’

‘You burn if you want to, the lady’s not for burning. Also, what do you mean it will be our “last chance”?’

‘The summer afterwards I will probably be pregnant,’ she said. I’d known that would be her answer, but I wanted to hear her say it explicitly. Her illogical optimism about the exact trajectory of her life never failed to make me glow with fondness for her.

‘It’ll be dark at four o’clock every day soon,’ she said. There was no reasoning with her when she was this deep into her stupor of fun-panic I had become so familiar with. ‘And everyone will be in every night with their partner and children, eating stilton and broccoli soup, not wanting to hang out with me.’

‘You do this every year.’

‘It’s already started happening. People don’t understand what it’s like to be us. No one wants to do anything any more, everyone just wants me round for dinner. Which is nice and everything, but I don’t want to spend my Saturday nights on a happy couple’s sofa. How am I ever going to meet anyone like that? I’ve never heard of anyone meeting the love of their life because they wandered through their friends’ living room in Bromley.’

‘But you can’t plan your social life around opportunities to meet men,’ I reasoned. ‘That’s so grim.’

‘Yes, I know that, but I also would just like some of our friends to appreciate that while their search is over, mine is still on. And I have supported them every step of the way on their search. I’ve written them poems for their weddings –’

‘Which, in fairness, I don’t remember any of them ever asking for.’

‘I just need them to help me achieve my dreams in the same way I supported theirs.’

‘I don’t think we ever really stop searching.’

‘Oh, stop it.’

‘It’s true. I don’t ever spend time with married people and think they’re significantly less restless than single people.’

‘Nina, I’m going to tell you something that you’re not going to like hearing. And loads of people think it, but everyone’s too scared to say it. And it’s not about feminism, and it’s not about men and women, it’s just a fact about life. Loads of people aren’t happy until they’re in a relationship. Happiness, for them, is being in a partnership. I am sadly one of those people.’

‘How do you know if you’ve never been in one though? What if you’re pinning all your hopes and planning your entire life on finding this one thing and then it disappoints you?’ I asked.

She stubbed out her cigarette, pulled out another one and lit it.

‘And what do you mean, “what it’s like to be us”?’ I asked.

‘Single,’ she said. We passed the cigarette between us.

‘Do you want to go to the pub?’ I asked eventually. ‘I know there’s one round here that does a really spicy Bloody Mary and it’s full of miserable suits looking to flirt.’

‘Yeah, go on then, yeah,’ she said, before adjusting her turban.

On our third bottle of white wine, I began to feel drunkenly maternal towards myself four hours previously, putting on a pair of leggings and trainers, truly believing I was going to spend the evening in a ‘Body Boost’ class. Bless her.

‘What happened to your man mountain, by the way?’ Lola asked.

‘Haven’t heard from him.’

‘How long’s it been?’

‘Three days.’

‘DON’T cave first,’ she said, pointing her finger at me and focusing her bloodshot eyes on mine. One of her enormous hoop earrings was now missing.

‘Is that definitely necessary? Because I just really, really want to call him.’

‘Look, three days of not hearing from a man is not all that bad. I’ve got something for the Schadenfreude Shelf,’ she said. The Schadenfreude Shelf was a shameful, private ritual we’d developed a few years ago, in which we collected stories of other people’s misfortunes to make us feel better about our own. The idea was, we would always have a selection of relevant anecdotes for us to reach for in any given situation that would put our disasters into perspective.

‘Do you remember a woman in my office called Jan?’

‘Is she the one who competed in the Microsoft solitaire championships?’

‘Exactly. So Jan had been with her husband for thirty years. Never wanted kids, was just the two of them. They were really happy – lived in a flat in Brixton and went on all these cruises to Iceland, listened to all sorts of jazz scat albums and had a Cavalier King Charles spaniel with one eye called Glen.’

‘Right.’

‘So Jan’s out in Brockwell Park one day with Glen.’

‘The husband?’

‘No, the dog,’ she slurred exasperatedly. ‘And she sees this man, much younger than her. He’s very tall, Spanish, a sort of Tony Danza type. He comes over and he’s all “cute dog” and she’s like “thanks” and then he’s all “the owner’s even cuter” and bless Jan, bless her, she hasn’t been chatted up since the seventies or whatever, so she’s beside herself. They go for some shisha, get to know each other, he’s called Jorge, he’s a locksmith, he’s from Girona, they exchange numbers. Long story short, they start this affair.’

‘Wow.’

‘I know.’

‘Who meets in a park these days?’

‘Well. That’s it, isn’t it? So Jorge is telling her he loves her, he wants her to leave her husband, he wants the two of them to start a new life together – with Glen as well – in Cardiff.’

‘Why Cardiff?’

‘Dunno. And she’s thinking, this could be my last great chance at a great, passionate love affair. I want to feel that one more time.’

‘But what about her lovely husband? And the cruises to Iceland?’

‘Lust,’ Lola said knowingly. ‘It makes fools of us.’

‘What happened?’

‘She packs two bags, one for her, one for Glen.’

‘She did not pack a bag for Glen.’

‘I SWEAR TO GOD,’ she shouted. ‘One of those miniature backpacks you get on the back of a teddy bear. She writes a letter to her husband explaining everything and apologizing from the bottom of her heart. Tells him she will always love him. Thanks him for the happiest years of her life. Leaves it on the table, then goes to Victoria coach station where she’d agreed to meet Jorge.’