'I took advantage of her?! Are you seriously implying that this was in some way rapey?' Ivor shouts.

'I'm saying it's the sordidness thing I've heard in a long time.'

Ivor stands up, clad only in his boxers, modesty forgotten.

'There's no such word as sordidness. You AIRHEAD.'

'Go to h.e.l.l!' Mindy screeches, bursting into tears and running back to the bedroom.

Ivor drops back onto the sofa, mouth open.

'Jesus,' he says, eventually, hand on head. 'What the f.u.c.k was that?'

'Low blood sugar?'

'I'm not proud of what I did, but was it that bad? She's behaving as if it's exploitation. If she thinks I'd ...' Ivor makes an incredulity noise. 'I don't want to spend my time around anyone who thinks I'm capable of that. She can go to h.e.l.l too.'

'We need a fry-up, and to calm down. Mindy's emotional, that's all.'

I'm glad Ivor doesn't ask me why she's emotional. I don't quite know.

'And what would she say if I was seeing twenty-three year olds? What is it about her shining example of a life that gives her the right to call me the t.u.r.d?'

'Let's have another cup of tea-'

'No, I'm going, Rachel,' he says, fumbling for his t-shirt on the floor. 'Sorry, it's not your fault.'

'OK.'

I go to find Mindy face down on the bed, head buried in a pillow.

'Hey,' I say, patting her hip. 'Ivor's going. I think we're all grouchy after last night's excess.'

Mindy sits up, hair askew. 'Tell s.e.x Pest Specs Pecs I said bye.'

I push the door shut, fast. 'Uh. Yeah. Might not. What's the matter?'

She sniffs, says nothing.

'Are things not going well with Jake?'

Mindy gives a small shrug.

'Do you want to talk about it?'

She shakes her head.

'Do you want a ma.s.sive full English?'

She shakes her head again.

'I'll go see Ivor out then.'

When I get to the door, Mindy says: 'Rachel. I might have a part English. When he's gone.'

The front door bangs.

'Oops,' I say.

'Was I too hard on him?'

I put my head on one side and open my mouth to a.s.semble a diplomatic answer that isn't Well, you scared the s.h.i.t out of me, and I was only a blameless bystander.

'Do you know what, I don't actually care!' Mindy yelps. 'What he's done is-'

'What people do,' I interrupt. 'Not that I'm saying it was a great decision.'

'Yeah, people, as in letchy men with no standards. Whatever else, I never thought Ivor was the kind who'd jump on anything that pa.s.sed. And Katya. She wears Crocs. With socks. Crocs with socks! I think I've seen her in Reebok pool slides like they're proper shoes, too. How would you even get rigid enough to do the deed?'

'Perhaps he's lonely.'

'Why would he be lonely? He's got us.'

'As great as I definitely think we are, I don't think we fulfil all of his needs. He hasn't gone out with anyone for a while. Since whatsername, who moved to Copenhagen.'

'Hannah,' Mindy sniffs, wipes her eyes. 'Split ends, bad table manners. Uhm, h.e.l.lo, tapas "sharer" plates doesn't mean you scarf all my boquerones. No loss.'

I sit down on the bed next to her. 'What's this really about?'

'It's about what it's about.'

'OK.'

A pause.

'Oh, I don't know. Jake's nice, but. You go through ticking all the boxes and find your ideal match and it's not ideal. You wouldn't choose your friends that way. Look at me, you and Caro. Totally different. She went to see Simon and Garfunkels at Hyde Park.'

'Garfunkel. Yes. See what you mean.' Perhaps not the time to suggest Mindy could also widen the search to include men who are not what she terms 'hard tens'.

'Everyone's always saying your thirties are when it all makes sense, you know, you read interviews with actresses and they're like Oh I'd never want to go back to my twenties they were so turbulent, and now I've got this ... tremendous sense of calm and I know what clothes suit me, cla.s.sic pieces, blah blah and it's bulls.h.i.t. Your twenties are a starter of You Don't Have To Have Worked It Out Yet. And your thirties are more the big stodgy main course of Maybe This Is How It's Going To Be. I haven't met anyone worth having a proper relationship with yet. And I'm thirty-one. What's to say anything's going to change by forty-one?'

'Oh come on, you're in your prime and you've got plenty of time to meet someone.' Hypocrisy: I don't recall this line working on me.

'I'm serious, Rachel. What if it doesn't happen for me? It's as if everyone grew up and moved on and got more serious and I didn't. That's probably why I'm seeing twenty-three year olds. It's where I'm stuck.'

'Yeah. I know that feeling of knowing you aren't happy and not knowing what to do about it.'

'But at least you committed. You were with Rhys for thirteen years. You were engaged.'

'Being with the wrong person is lonelier than being on your own. Or it's as lonely, in a different way, trust me. I wasn't dating, or looking, like you. I have to wonder if I wasted all the time I had to find the right person, waiting for me and Rhys to work.'

'Honestly?' Mindy says. 'We didn't know. You seemed OK.'

'I'm c.r.a.p at knowing how I feel, Mind. It's like I don't even let myself in on the secret.'

Pause.

'At least you do a job that you had to apply for. Ivor thinks I'm some thick businessman's daughter, a spoilt Injun princess who got everything given to her. I'm not Rupa!'

'He doesn't think that.'

'You heard him. "Airhead".'

'He was lashing back, he didn't mean it.'

'He did. People say what they really think in arguments.'

'They say what they think will hurt the most.'

A pause. 'I need Ivor to be a good person, Rachel. If he's a s.h.i.t too, then I give up. I really do.'

'He is good. He did something you don't like, is all, and sounds like he doesn't like it much either, in the cold light of day.'

Mindy rests her head on my shoulder and I put my arm around her. 'And maybe, when you've both made up, if you wanted to be very petty, you could point out to Ivor that, while your phrasing was a little off, "sordidness" is a word.'

Mindy pulls away, perks up.

'It is? Ha. In your FACE, Johnson.'

41.

In the falling dusk, my heels go clip clop clip clop on the pavement, and when I check the time and break into a canter, clipclopclipclopclipclop. I've discovered the great thing about living in the city centre is you can walk everywhere and the c.r.a.p thing about living in the city centre is you have to walk everywhere.

I feel nervous at this date with Simon but I can't honestly say any nerves come from thinking I might be about to fall head over heels in love, or even head over shreddies into bed. He's attractive, I can see that. My appreciation is very much of the objective, unfelt, other-ladies-must-like-him variety though. But Caroline's right, I'm better off behaving like a single person and doing some dating straight away, rather than leaving this step another year. If I feel out of the loop now, well, that's only going to get worse.

Sometimes I think I need a bossy life sat-nav clipped to my belt. 'At the first opportunity, make a U turn ...'

I reach the corner near the restaurant and slow down, instinctively smoothing the back of my dress to make sure it isn't caught in my knickers. After hobbling here with the bandy gait of a Monty Python man in fishwife drag, I try for a more fluid swingy motion, one foot directly in front of another.

I read somewhere that the footprints of a debutante in sand are one long line, not side by side. I ignore the shooting pain in my left heel that tells me Manchester pavements aren't the beach and I'm no book-balancing beauty. I try to paint a beatific sailed-here-on-a-scented-breeze expression on to my features.

After saying I was free and easy where we dined, I had a late-dawning realisation that I didn't want to go anywhere frighteningly exorbitant with Simon and ratchet up expectation. I suggested an Italian place near the Printworks that's really an enhanced Pizza Express and expected him to argue to prove he was discerning, but he agreed straight away. Must be in the English gent code that you don't quibble with a lady's choice. Or he liked the realistic pricing.

I see Simon's stood outside, it obviously also being in the English gent code that you don't enter the venue without the lady. He could've heard me coming: I was clattering down the street like a dog that needs its toenails clipping.

He greets me with: 'Good evening. You look fantastic. Shall we?'

I don't look anywhere near as crisply-pressed and collected and plausibly first date-ish as him white shirt, and what could, distressingly, be chinos but I appreciate the sentiment, and agree we shall.

We're shown to the sofa in the waiting area, by a gigantic potted palm. The restaurant is a symphony of the tinkle of gla.s.sware and cutlery on china and chatter. Black-clad waiting staff flit about in the ch.o.r.eography of attentive service. This is where the rest of society has been spending its Sat.u.r.day nights, not propped up in bed with a 3-for-2 deal paperback by ten p.m., while their partner heckles Match of the Day.

Simon's handed the wine list and, as he's flipping authoritatively through the faux-parchment pages, says: 'How well do you know Ben, then?'

Not Simon too.

'What do you mean?'

'Are you exes, or what?'

'No. Old friends. Why?'

'That's what he said. Yet I got a tetchy lecture about looking after you, blah blah ... as if I was the big bad wolf trying to get into your basket.'

I'm touched by this, and surprised. I try not to show it.

'He's got a little sister. It's a common syndrome big brothers are always protective of female friends by extension.'

'Right. So you've never climbed aboard?'

'What?'

He's asking the thing no one else would ever ask as his first question? If I was in a childhood comic book, cartoon Rachel would have a mouth like a cat's b.u.m and the thought bubble caption 'GUMPF'.

'You've never hopped on our Benji?'

My shock gives way to laughter at the audacity of the inquiry. I should say: 'Look at me, look at Ben. Look at Olivia. Look likely?'

The waiter announces our table is ready.

Simon stands up and does up a b.u.t.ton on his jacket, as if we're being led to the podium at an awards ceremony, wine list clamped under his arm like a clipboard. 'After you.'

When we've been handed the menus, I lean across the table and hiss: 'No, I haven't. I can't believe you're asking that. He's your friend. Haven't you asked him?'

'Always question people separately.'

'Ah, of course. Perhaps you'd rather do this in the custody suite of Bootle Street nick?'

'It's not got mood lighting,' Simon smiles. 'I like to know what's what.'

'So I see.'