Rhys got to his feet, holding his pint of Cobra. 'If I could say a few words-'

'Rhys,' I said. 'What ... um?'

'I know this is a bit formal for a twenty-first, but you all graduate soon so it might be the last time I go out to dinner with you. I wanted to say, not only is Rachel the greatest girlfriend in the world ...' He paused here for the obligatory ripple of sighs that went round the female members of the party. Greatest girlfriend? He thought that? '... Since I started visiting Rach in Manchester three years ago, you've made me feel that you're my friends too. I want to say how much I've appreciated it. I even hear that Ben went above and beyond once and smacked a bloke who deserved it, on my behalf.'

Pippa yelped with admiration and put an arm round him, a welcome correction to the lingering fear that the incident had worked an opposite effect on a previous girlfriend. Ben only looked startled.

'You're a great bloke. And there I was, thinking I hated students and southerners and southern students most of all. You should be my Kryptonite.'

Laughter. Rhys tipped his gla.s.s towards Ben and Ben raised his in return, still looking slightly stunned and blank.

'To my girl Rachel. Happy twenty-first and cheers.'

'Cheers,' I mumbled, and we raised our gla.s.ses and clinked, drank.

I felt an adoring-envious hum from the hive mind of the group: isn't she lucky, isn't he nice, isn't this lovely. I was lucky. Rhys grinned and winked at me as he sat down, the Fozzie Bear crime expunged from the record. I grinned back, grateful, amazed and a little overcome. If you clicked the shutter on life's great camera at that second, I was on the brink of it all and I had everything I wanted: devoted boy, great friends, future plans, garlic naan.

Yet something wasn't right. Someone who mattered was unhappy. As the discussion over the bill and where to go next began, I looked around the table at the contented faces, committing the tableau to memory. I forced myself to include Ben in the visual sweep. He was frowning, deeply, at the rubble of a near-untouched lamb bhuna.

I thought about the truism that you never know you'll miss things until they're gone. I missed Ben's optimism. Clearly, it had left university before he had.

47.

I check my watch as I scurry into the cinema and find that, thanks to some kind of Greenwich Mean Time prank, the clock has leapt forward by ten minutes somewhere between Sackville Street and here. Another drawback of living in the city centre and walking everywhere is you don't get to blame the traffic.

Caroline taps me on the shoulder, folds her arms.

'Save it,' she says, as I embark on my excuse. 'You can pay for my pick'n'mix by way of apology.'

We've taken our Friday night date into town as Graeme's got off the red eye from somewhere this morning and needs to sleep. Caroline said she'd drink too much if we stayed in at mine and she has the in-laws arriving the next day.

She marches across the lobby of the Odeon, towering and lean in indigo denim, and starts trowelling penny dreadfuls into a paper bag. I get a gallon of sugar-free fizzy drink and we troop into the auditorium. It's barely a third full, the screen blank.

'Why hasn't it started?' I ask, adjusting my fingers on the damp weight of my cardboard bucket of liquid.

'Because I told you it started half an hour earlier than it does. Let's sit over there.'

I open my mouth to object and realise the end has justified the means. Following Caroline, we settle down into the seats.

'How did the date with Simon go, last week?' she says, folding a red liquorice bootlace into her mouth.

'Good. It was a laugh. Dinner, goodnight kiss. Nothing more.'

Caroline chews, with difficulty, given she's eating something more plastic than foodstuff.

'Great!' she says, gummed up. 'When are you seeing him again?'

'Um not sure.'

'Is he playing hard to get?'

'I'm taking things slowly. I don't want to rush into anything.'

'Rushing into another nice dinner? Woah, nelly.'

'You know what I mean. I don't know how I feel yet.'

'But you like him?' she asks.

'Yeeeees. He's entertaining. If frightening and eccentric.'

'You need an eccentric. You're an eccentric.'

'No I'm not!'

'Of course you don't think you're an eccentric. No one does. Like no one thinks they have bad taste.'

'I have bad taste?'

'No.'

I take a noisy suck on my drink, swish the ice around with the straw.

'Olivia says Simon's asked Ben about you, seems very keen,' Caroline says.

The fact Caroline's used the very words I overheard from Olivia at the dinner party makes me think it's a direct quote. Olivia must know Caroline will tell me this, so I partially discount it as propaganda. What I'm much more interested in is that Caroline's seen Olivia. I feel an awful gut-spasm of insecurity.

'You've seen Olivia?'

'We went late-night shopping. She wanted a fascinator for a wedding so I took her along to Selfridges.'

'How did you even have her number, or vice versa?'

I know this is a Jealous Person's Question. Which bus did you catch? Did you have a drink afterwards? Tell me girl, where did you sleep last night?

'We exchanged numbers at the party at yours. Like I said, I think she's short of friends up here. We should do a girls' lunch with her.'

'Hmm,' I say, remembering the venom-tipped arrows she fired from her eyes during the wedding music conversation.

Pause.

'She says Ben's being a bit distant,' Caroline adds.

'Right.'

There's a pause that turns into a 'insert explanation here' pause.

'He's not talking to me about anything, if that's what you think.'

'You haven't seen him?'

I get the distinct impression Caroline already knows the answer.

'We went for a lunchtime sandwich. Simon was the main topic of conversation.'

'Olivia asked me about you two at university, what you were like.'

'Did she? What did you say?'

I cover my nerves by rummaging in her pick'n'mix bag, coming out with a white mouse filled with radioactive pink goo.

'That you were friends.'

'She already knew that.'

'I know. I wonder what's causing her to question it.'

I slip the mouse into my mouth. 'Are you telling me she was seriously concerned?'

'Nooo ...' Caroline relents, fishing in the sweet bag. 'I think she was merely curious about Ben's past, like any partner.'

'There you are then.'

'They're seeing things very differently since they moved up here. It was meant to be for good and now they're divided on whether to stay. He's being very unsympathetic about her missing her family and wanting to plan a longer-term future down south, Olivia says.'

'Why move up, if she's only going to lobby to go back down again?' I say, warily.

'If they have kids, of course she's going to want to be around her mum.'

'Doesn't sound like Ben though. He's so easygoing.'

'Isn't anyone, with someone other than their other half?' Caroline looks distinctly irritable as she throws a handful of cola bottles to the back of her mouth.

'Hmm,' I say. I sense non-committal noises are my friend here, and having opinions, and expressing them, are not.

'By the way, when I asked Ivor and Mindy out tonight, they both said the same thing. "Not if you've asked Ivor-slash-Mindy",' Caroline says. 'They're still at each other's throats over Katya? I do think Mindy should think before she speaks sometimes.'

'Yeah, that row was rococo. Mindy went bats.h.i.t insane. I thought it was hangover-rage but doesn't sound like they've made it up. Ivor says he's mortally insulted and is making threats he's not going to come out with us as a four again. We need to put them in the same room, let them slug this out. They're both as stubborn as each other.'

'I have a theory,' Caroline says.

'Which is?'

The lights dim and the adverts begin. An hour-and-a-half of slapstick hilarity later, I forget to repeat the question.

48.

I can't convince Caroline to stay out for a drink 'Gray's parents can spot a hangover at thirty paces, and the thought of putting up with them makes me want to drink a lot, a dangerous combination' so she goes for her tram and I make my way back to the flat, wondering what I'm going to do with the rest of the weekend. Your life should get fuller as you get older, the canvas become more crowded, a Renoir cafe instead of one of Lowry's industrial wastelands. Instead here I am, thirties in progress, and I probably had more of an agenda when I was a teenager.

The deal when I was with Rhys was Fridays with the friends, Sat.u.r.days with him, after band practice. We'd go to a neighbourhood restaurant, or pub, or most often, spend an evening in with Rhys cooking something blokey with fresh chillies, both of us slamming down too many bottles of wine. It's not as if the loss of our coupledom has blown a hole in the middle of my social life, but being together is enough of an alibi for society about how you're spending your time. I'm considering booking a weekend on my own in Paris for the date of the would've-been wedding. City of Love ... maybe not. I'll probably see a kissing couple like the ones from that famous wartime photo and have to be fished out of the Seine.

My phone starts ringing and I hope Caroline's thought better of the abstinence and doubled back. I see the caller's Simon and before I can stop myself, I start smiling in antic.i.p.ation.

He doesn't bother with h.e.l.lo.

'Do I have to send a barbershop quartet round to court singing "Take A Chance On Me", then?'

'h.e.l.lo, Simon. What would you do that for?'

'To have a hope of a second date.'

'Hah! That would extinguish all hope forever.'

'There is some hope, then?'

'Never say never.'

'Friends, then? Can men and women be friends or does s.e.x always get in the way, and other cliches?'

A gang of blokes with untucked shirts in every shade of the Ted Baker rainbow pa.s.s by, giving an obligatory 'you're a woman!' roar. I'm glad it prevents me from having to make an answer.

'Have I disturbed your book group?' Simon asks.

'I'm walking back from the cinema.'

'On your own? I'll have to talk to you until you arrive home safely, then.'

'Very kind.'

'Can I check, has Ben been sticking his oar in, by any chance?'

I swap the phone to my other ear. 'Eh?'