‘He’s one of those men who prioritizes the charming of new people,’ I said. ‘Maybe it’s the drama training. Every situation is an audition, a bid for approval. I’m amazed she even wants his attention. They’ve been together almost as long as we have.’

If this implied that I had no desire for her attention, Clare took it in good part, cheerfully arranging a date for the four of us to get together again. Kit and I got off the boat at Woolwich to meet Melia and her in a new food hall that had sprung up in a disused factory to dispatch pho, roti, ramen, fennel blanched in ostrich urine (not really, just testing) and cocktails with sprigs of Thai basil served in enamel camping mugs with striped paper straws. In spite of – or because of – high prices and taxing acoustics, the place was heaving, the simple accomplishment of securing a table enough to bring about a release of endorphins.

We sat, as we had on first meeting, in facing couples, Clare opposite Kit and me Melia. ‘I’ll tell my clients about this place,’ Melia said, sucking her drink. ‘If they take a flat on the peninsula, they can hop on the boat and come here for dinner. Make a little trip of it.’

Clare nodded approvingly. ‘Maybe we’ll be like Brixton Village soon.’

‘Hope so, it’ll be a lot easier to get coke,’ Kit said and Melia gave him one of her playful slaps.

‘Look how she abuses me,’ he appealed to me with a twisting smile.

‘There are men who would pay good money for a slap from your missus,’ I said, which was no more than the truth, for Melia was looking good enough to draw the gaze of most, if not all, passing males. The legs were not on display this time, but other assets were: her inky hair was pinned up to reveal a pale nape; she removed her work blazer to reveal a top with a neckline wide enough to slip off one shoulder, exposing a lacy black bra strap.

I’d dressed a little more smartly myself for the occasion, had even had a haircut in my lunch break and spritzed myself with some of the posh French cologne Clare had given me on my last birthday.

I realized Kit was responding to my last remark, repeating a question: ‘How much, d’you reckon? Enough to sort out the student loan?’

‘Oh, definitely.’ I wasn’t sure how much the average student loan was, to be honest. Already, I’d learned not to refer to the financial injustices of our age gap: to say, for instance, that I’d been to university when it was still free – I’d even received a grant – would be to provoke a bitter rant.

Less familiar with the danger, Clare began talking to him of her undergraduate budgeting, leaving me to devote myself to Melia and her lovely golden gaze.

‘So how are you, Jamie?’ An emphasis on you. She leaned a fraction closer. ‘I was thinking on my way here that I hardly know anything about you. I feel like Kit hogs you. I can just imagine him snuggled up to you on that boat.’

I grinned. ‘I can assure you there’s no snuggling.’

‘He says you know things. About the river, the buildings. All the old pubs.’

I smiled. ‘Well, I’ve made a life’s study of those.’ I watched as the end of the paper straw began disintegrating on her lower lip, causing her to pick off soggy fragments with matt-black fingernails. ‘How are you getting on at Hayter Armstrong?’

‘Oh, great. I love seeing all the amazing flats, especially the riverside ones. Those terraces where you can just stand and look out at the water.’

‘You’re lucky to be working at the higher end of the rental market.’

‘Not as lucky as if I got to live in one of them,’ she said, with a girlish flounce of self-pity.

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Some of them are unoccupied, right? You could always go back after hours and hang out. Pick your favourite and meet Kit there. Lie on someone else’s sofa and enjoy their view free of charge. Stay the night.’

I remembered making a similar comment when I first met Clare and she’d insisted that the scurrilous practices for which estate agents had once been known were long since outlawed.

‘What a brilliant idea!’ A smile broke over Melia’s face, light cracking the cloud. ‘When I’m caught in the act, I’ll tell Clare it was all your fault.’

‘I’ll deny it,’ I said and we grinned at each other over our sprigs of basil. ‘What’s your family background, Melia? You have such an unusual eye colour.’

‘Half jaguar, half lion,’ she said, deadpan, and our laughter interrupted our partners’ conversation. There was faint relief in Clare’s expression, I saw, and I knew to expect the complaint that arrived later over a glass of wine in the kitchen before bed.

‘Kit’s easily whipped up about money, have you noticed?’ ‘I certainly have,’ I said. ‘He’s very aspirational.’

Clare sighed. ‘All the youngsters at work are. They want more, more, more and then feel persecuted if they don’t get it. Richard says that generation were raised to expect it all to be handed to them on a plate and take it personally when it isn’t.’ She paused to glance around her elegant elder-and-limestone kitchen, relocated from basement to ground floor before my time to capitalize on the high windows and gracious proportions. The dining chairs were wittily mismatched, including the Shaker antique draped with sheepskin that she always chose.

I thought, a little disloyally, Wasn’t all this handed to you on a plate?

‘Kit’s the worst I’ve met, though,’ she went on. ‘You should’ve heard him tonight, talking like he thinks there’s some Anti-Roper League meeting every week to dream up new ways to thwart his ambitions.’

‘You have to admit life is tougher for them than it was for us,’ I said, with as much – or little – delicacy as my four cocktails and large glass of red would allow. ‘Because of people like you driving up property prices.’

She smirked. ‘That’s right, blame estate agents for all the world’s ills. We only propose what the punters are prepared to pay.’

‘Is that Hayter Armstrong’s new slogan?’

‘Ha! But seriously, how do they afford their lifestyle, Kit and Melia? They plead poverty and obviously have these debts and yet they dress so well and they go out constantly. Kit hinted at a coke habit, didn’t he? That can’t be cheap.’

‘I think the way it works is they spend their salaries the moment they’re paid and then put the rest of the month on credit cards,’ I said. ‘They live the way they think they have a right to live, not the way they can afford to.’

Clare’s eyes flared. ‘That’s not the way I would want to run my finances.’

There was a hint of superiority in her dismissal that riled me. ‘To be fair, they haven’t been supplied with a home by their parents.’

She said nothing, though she’d be forgiven for objecting to my sudden piety, given the unquestioning ease with which I’d benefited from her parents’ generosity all these years. All of a sudden it seemed impossible that we’d rubbed along for so long with this fundamental imbalance. If I didn’t reinvent myself adequately in the timeframe she deemed appropriate, would I be out on my ear?

‘Would you swap? Would you go back to being young, even with all the hardships?’ All at once, she was very earnest. She was a magical realist, Clare; she took hypotheticals as seriously as true dilemmas.