‘Why can’t you just write another one?’

‘Because, my life coach and I did a whole ritual with that specific list and I can’t afford another session to do it all over again. I know you might think this stuff is silly, but it’s very easy to dismiss it when you’re all … loved up.’ Our drinks hadn’t yet arrived and she had already said the thing she’d been wanting to say to me for weeks.

‘That’s got nothing to do with it, I thought you were loopy when we were both single.’

‘That’s true,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming to this thing with me tonight. I know you hate singles events. And I know you’re not technically single any more.’

‘Don’t be silly, I’ll always come to them with you.’

‘I got ghosted last week.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It’s when a person just stops speaking to you instead of having a break-up conversation.’

‘Why’s it called ghosting?’

‘Number of schools of thought,’ she said, with the command of an academic. ‘Most commonly, it is thought to have come from the idea that you are haunted by someone who vanishes, you don’t get any closure. Others have said it derives from the three grey dots that appear then disappear when someone is writing you an iMessage and then doesn’t send it. Because it looks ghostly.’

‘I see. And which guy was this?’

‘Jared. Works in the charity sector.’

‘Oh no!’ I said. ‘He seemed great.’

‘Yeah, well, they always do.’

I wished, more than anything, that I could buy a Durex for her heart.

‘Didn’t he say he wanted you to meet his parents or something?’

‘Yep,’ she nodded. ‘The last time I saw him he said: “If you fancy a weekend away from London, I’d love for you to come meet my parents.” Then he kissed me goodbye and I never heard from him again. It’s been three weeks. I’ve sent nine messages, ten was my limit. So I’m saving it up to compose a really good one, I’m going to really give him a piece of my mind.’

‘Let’s write it together,’ I said.

‘You are the only one who I could talk to about all the stuff we talk about.’ Lola closed her eyes and flapped her hand gently, a pre-emptive dismissal of comfort as her eyes filled with tears.

‘Sweetheart,’ I said, my hands reaching for hers across the table. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I am so happy that you’ve met someone, I really am, I promise,’ she said. ‘But now I really am all on my own. I’ve been left behind by everyone. I’m going to have to become that woman in the office who befriends all the graduates.’

‘No, you’re not!’ I said. ‘First of all, I’m exactly the same person and we can still do exactly the same things and talk about the same things and hang out just as much. And secondly, who knows what will happen with Max and me. It’s not like once someone is in a relationship, they’re sorted for ever.’

‘No, but I want it to work out for you two. I don’t want to be one of those single women who resents the happiness of her friends, that’s not who I am. Oh God, I don’t know, maybe it’s –’ Lola turned her phone over, opened the cycle-tracking app that every thirty-something woman I knew now seemed to be obsessed with. ‘No,’ she said, defeated and sniffing. ‘Not even premenstrual.’ The waitress arrived with our bottle of Pinot Grigio and poured it, while Lola dabbed her eyes with the frilly cuff of a strange Edwardian shirt she was wearing, replete with diamanté buttons.

‘Where are you taking me to tonight?’

‘An astrological matchmaking event. Everyone gets their birth charts done and then we get paired up with our most compatible partner, horoscopically speaking.’

‘Okay,’ I said, happy to have distracted her. ‘And what are you?’

‘Your classic, middle-of-the-road, straight-down-the-line Pisces. We’re so predictable. I can spot one anywhere. I met my friend’s beagle the other day, and I guessed instantly that he was a Pisces, and he was!’ She was clearly fragile, so I let this one go without mockery.

‘How interesting.’

‘Ideally, I’m looking for a Cancer, but they can be a bit too home-orientated and weirdly I’ve noticed often have psoriasis, which isn’t a problem of course.’

‘Mmm.’

‘You’re a Leo. What’s Max?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘I hope he’s a Libra,’ she said, crossing her fingers excitedly. ‘I’ve always wanted you to be with a Libra. Relaxed but fiercely loyal, that’s what you need. And they have whopper shlongs!’

‘Lola, come on.’

‘They do.’

‘I’ve already seen his cock, his cock isn’t going to suddenly enlarge once I discover he’s a Libra.’

‘It’s strange,’ she said, wrinkling her nose slightly. ‘I’ve always been so unconvinced you’re a Leo.’

I knew this was an insult, despite knowing nothing about horoscopes. ‘In what way?’

‘You’re just a bit … fussy.’

‘Thank you.’

‘No, in a good way. You have much more of a controlled Virgo energy.’

‘Do you think, maybe … maybe … it could be a lie?’

‘Your birthdate? Could well be, actually. Could well be. I’ve heard of birth certificates being a few days out.’

‘No, not my birth certificate – star signs.’

‘Oh.’ Her eyes squinted slightly as she conjured this thought as a possibility. ‘No.’

The next morning, with the sort of hangover that makes you google ashrams, I found myself ten and a half miles away from my sofa and once again on Wandsworth Common against my will. The original plan was for Katherine to come to my flat to help me choose a paint colour for my bathroom, then go for a walk and lunch nearby, but at the last minute she said she couldn’t do the journey because of a childcare glitch. I was totally unsurprised – such is the superior trump card of motherhood that she once cancelled dinner with me an hour before we were meant to meet via a text explaining she had to ‘wake up in the morning etc.’, as if being childless gave me an option of not existing for the day.

‘And did she get any matches?’ she asked as we strode beneath the tupelo trees, their amber leaves flickering like flames in the October wind.

‘No,’ I said. ‘We turned up, and it was thirty-five women and five men.’

‘How poorly organized.’

‘I know, she was so disappointed. And the five men were all air signs, which apparently are the worst matches for Pisces, so we decided to cut our losses and we went to the pub instead.’

‘What’s she going to try next?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, my black lace-up boots pressing through ochre leaf mulch. ‘We decided to widen her Linx location preference from ten miles to fifty miles, as she’s heard some rumours of there being single farmers in the Home Counties. It just all feels so overwrought and I’m starting to finally see her patience run out. Like she might give up.’

‘I’m trying to think if Mark has any nice friends,’ she said. I could tell her in one short answer: no, no he doesn’t. But Katherine couldn’t pass off an opportunity to act as The Gatekeeper To All Things Matrimonial. ‘Dear old Lola, I do worry about her.’ There it was again.

‘How’s the baby?’

‘Good!’ she said, stroking her small bump swathed in the grey wool of her coat. ‘Did I tell you we’ve found out the sex?’

‘And?’ I yelped excitedly.

‘We’ve decided to keep it just between us,’ she smiled.

Ten and a half miles, I had travelled that morning. Ten and a half miles. ‘Why’s that then?’ I asked flatly.

‘Just something for the family, you know?’

‘Mmm. Cool.’

‘But, yeah, we’re pleased,’ she said enigmatically, as if she were a Hollywood starlet in an at-home shoot and I was a pushy journalist for Time magazine, following her around with a notepad. I could see the spread now, her dripping with diamonds and lounging on the sofa in a housecoat. The headline: My Weekend With Katherine. ‘So now we’re starting conversations about godparents,’ she said.

‘Starting conversations,’ I said. ‘And how many of the UN are involved?’ I watched the inner conflict manifest on her face, trying to decide whether to jump on the joke and be a satirist with me, or defend her pomposity and be an arsehole.

‘Oh, we’re at the General Assembly next week,’ she said. ‘Expect to see it on the front of the New York Times.’