They also loved telling stories that either heavily hinted or explicitly described how much sex they were having. Jethro was clearly a man who thought he knew the female body better than any woman; that it was not only his job but his gift to the world, to educate us on how it all worked.

‘Any woman can have an internal orgasm if their G-spot is stimulated correctly,’ he told me as he tucked into shepherd’s pie.

‘They can, Nina, they really can,’ Lola said excitedly. She had not only lost her mind, but all sense of social appropriateness.

‘Very interesting,’ I said. When Lola wasn’t hinting at the sexual awakening she was currently undergoing, she relished telling me the mundane details of their cohabitation. She told me about the surprising amount of grooming products he’d left in her bathroom; how annoying it was that he filled the fridge with green smoothies. This was something she’d never experienced before – she’d never been close enough to a man to do the ‘him indoors’ bit. She was not only in love with being in love, she was in love with finally being able to complain about someone. It would have been churlish of me not to allow it.

‘How was your weekend away with Max?’ she asked.

‘Ah, yes, the great, hunky Max!’ Jethro said. ‘I’ve heard all about him.’

‘It was lovely,’ I said. ‘I think the more we spend time together, the more I realize how unsatisfied he is in so many ways. And I really want to help him, but I also don’t want to be smothering. So I’m just trying to work out that balance at the moment.’

‘Yeah, I mean, I don’t know. Darling, what do you think, from a man’s perspective?’ she said, turning to Jethro, who immediately launched into a speech about the misconceptions of the male psyche. I arranged my face into an expression that seemed engaged while allowing me to not listen to a word he was saying – the one I used at most birthday parties – and instead thought about the fact I hadn’t heard from Max since we’d come back to London. It had been four days. I texted him the day after he dropped me off, to see how he was, and I got no reply. I’d called him this morning and he didn’t pick up. A sense of dread had returned like a recurring injury.

‘Do you like him?’ Lola asked, when Jethro went to the loo.

‘Really like him,’ I said, searching my brain for specifics, because I knew she would not rest until specifics were given. ‘He’s very open, which I think is great. Really good hair. Love a male redhead. Very confident. Very warm.’

‘What else?’ she demanded gleefully.

‘Obviously adores you.’

‘You think?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re moving in together.’

‘I thought you already live together?’

‘Yeah, well, we basically do, but we’re going to buy a place together.’

‘Buy a place, why?’

‘Because we want to have somewhere new that is both of ours.’

‘Definitely rent together first, don’t buy.’

‘Renting is a waste of money.’

‘No, it’s not, that’s a thing our parents say. Renting is the best money you can spend, you get a home in return.’

‘He doesn’t want to rent.’

‘Can you afford to buy?’

This question irritated her. ‘He’s going to buy then we’ll split the mortgage.’

‘But then you’re not buying a place together.’

‘I don’t want to waste any more time,’ she said. ‘I’ve been waiting my whole life to live with a man I love, I want to just get on with it now.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I get it.’ I did not get it.

In a classy move that proved to me that Jethro really was desperate for my approval, he paid for the bill without saying anything on his way back from the loo. I thanked him, we hugged goodbye, he told me we were ‘family now’, which felt almost like a threat, and I told him I looked forward to spending more time with him. Lola hugged me and told me she’d call me to arrange dinner that week. I knew she wouldn’t – having seen her with Jethro, it was confirmed that she really was on an indefinite holiday now, and I knew from experience that it was hard to get in touch with anyone who was staying where she’d checked in. I didn’t mind. I was happy that she’d finally got what she wanted.

I walked the two miles home and called Max. He didn’t pick up. I tried again – no answer. I walked past a sports centre that had outside courts. A group of teenage girls were playing netball. Netball reminded me of Katherine – we were in the team together when we were at school. She was so good at it – her body was factory-built for netball – long, quick, light on her feet. She was Goal Defence, I was a Wing Attack. Even in adulthood, we still employed the insult ‘she has such Centre energy’ as the worst aspersion you could cast on a woman. I stood at the side and looked through the metal net and thought of all the matches my dad came to – how surprisingly blood-thirsty he became at the sidelines for such a mild-mannered man. I wondered if Katherine remembered it too. She was my only close friend from childhood – one day I would be the only member left of my triumvirate family and she’d be the one person who could travel into my memories with me. I found myself missing her more than I’d ever missed her.

I watched one of the girls glide into the air to catch the ball and gallop her feet down in two neat steps. What a prissy sport it was. No touching, one foot glued to the ground, no obstruction, no holding the ball for more than a few seconds. I watched the girls pivot balletically and wave their arms like an arabesque and was reminded of the day when we swapped all our sports lessons with a local boys’ school. They had a horrible time playing netball – unable to summon the emotionless, no-contact control the game required for which we had been so well trained. Whereas we all had the best day of our lives on their football and rugby pitches – kicking things and throwing each other to the ground and getting covered in grass and mud. Only now, watching teenage girls in prim bibs play netball so precisely and perfectly, did I realize that I wanted to scream on their behalf. I wanted to scream for all of us.

I sent Max a text.

‘I think you’re doing it again.’

Ten minutes later I sent him another one.

‘You promised me you wouldn’t do this again.’

When I arrived home, I could hear shouting as I approached the building. I stood in the hallway and pressed my ear against Angelo’s front door. There was arguing in Italian, first from him and then from a female voice. They shouted over each other – both of them raising their voices to defeat the other one in a tireless battle. I heard the female voice scream and something smash. There was a brief pause and then the shouting started again, from him, beginning slow and menacing and building to a crescendo so loud his voice broke from exertion. I banged on the door.

‘Hello?’ I yelped. I didn’t know what else to say. I only needed to know she was safe. ‘HELLO?’ I said, banging the door. ‘ARE YOU OKAY?’ She started shouting again, so I banged the door harder. ‘I’ll call the police, Angelo,’ I shouted. ‘If you don’t open the door I’m going to CALL THE POLICE.’ The door flung open. A woman stood in front of me – short, hard-featured, dark-eyed. Over-plucked, feathery eyebrows. Thin, almost invisible lips, quivering in anger. Her shoulder-length hair was that bottle-burgundy you saw a lot of in the mid-noughties, thick and crisp from straighteners.

‘WHAT?’ she shouted, lightly spritzing me with her spit. She had a silver hoop through her septum.

‘Are you okay? Just tell me you’re okay and I’ll leave you alone. You can come sit in my flat if you need to.’ I looked behind her and saw Angelo standing in his dressing gown, blank-faced, his hands swinging uselessly by his sides. She turned and asked him something in Italian. He shrugged and muttered something back. She gave a snort of laughter, then slammed the door. When I got upstairs I wrote the time and date on a scrap of paper, along with a description of what had just happened, in case it ever became important information.

A week later, still having heard nothing from Max, I decided to keep my phone at home when I left the flat. I had already wasted enough of the last year staring at my screen, waiting for him to appear. If he really was ghosting me again, this time I wanted the exorcism to happen as quickly and painlessly as possible. When I returned home one afternoon and picked up my phone to find five missed calls from my mum, I knew one of two things must have happened – a divorce within the royal family, or Dad was in trouble.

‘Nina?’ she squawked when she picked up after half a ring.

‘Yes. Hi. Is everything okay?’

‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry, I’m trying to leave my phone in the flat when I’m out.’

‘Why the hell would you do that?’

‘Because –’ I couldn’t face telling her that Max was ignoring me again – ‘of my … mental health,’ I finished feebly. She’d know immediately this was not a phrase I would ever use. My mental health. Like it was a pet dachshund.

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’

‘What’s happened?’