'We'd have to work out a timeshare where you both retained your stake and we scheduled around it,' Caroline says. 'But it might never happen. Me and Rach might be aunties to gorgeous cocoa-skinned gaudily dressed children.' She sticks her tongue in her cheek.

'May I pour you a nice warm cup of shut the f.u.c.k up?' Ivor says.

I propose a toast. 'To Ivor and Mindy. With names and taste in clothes like yours, you were always destined to be a couple.'

We clink plastic gla.s.ses.

'And to Caroline's fifty-third,' Ivor says, looking around us at a sea of silver hair.

68.

I pack away my textbook and mumble my goodbyes to my cla.s.s mates before heading out into the mucky weather. I started taking an Italian night cla.s.s at the university. There's about a half a dozen international students and me, mumbling our way through pidgin Italian with a very bright, fair and entirely English tutor, nothing like the undulating Gina Lollobrigida character of my imagination.

Clouds that were soft, smoky pencil smudges this afternoon have dissolved into spattering rain. Despite the persistent drizzle and my next engagement requiring me not to look bedraggled, I decide to walk. I pa.s.s Central Library, the dome illuminated in a Close Encounters way, as if it might start whirring, chiming and spin off into the night sky. I stand and gaze at it for a few moments, shivering, clutching the collars of my coat together. I hurry down the streets as the rain gathers pace, speckling my face and making me blink. In the twinkly sanctuary of the cafe-bar I find a table in the far corner, by the window and below The Wizard Of Oz poster.

'We've got mulled wine on the go, if you fancy it?' says the art college waitress, pulling the pencil from her floppy ponytail as she takes my order. 'It's so nasty out there we thought we needed it.'

'Ooh, go on then,' I say, as if it's contraband, like the naughty old granny dipso I'm surely fated to become.

It arrives in a gla.s.s on a saucer, a paper napkin folded underneath to catch the drips. I got here just in time: the rain's being picked up by the wind and hurled sideways, cascading down in waves as if we're inside a car wash.

These last weeks have been fairly awful. Tonight I don't feel so bad. I'm empty but energised. The sort of light-headedness I imagine you get on a fast at an ashram, when you tell yourself it's the toxins leaving your body as opposed to it starting to digest itself.

I'm back to factory settings. Clean slate, start again, only way is up, as the great philosopher Yazz said.

Rhys called me last night to tell me he'd met someone else, Claire. She's started working at his company. She might be moving in, and did I mind it being so soon? I surprised myself by not only saying I didn't mind, but meaning it. He sounded like he wanted to gush, and that's not the Rhys I know she's already having an effect I didn't. Rhys doesn't need my blessing or permission, he explained, but I still have a key and some things in the loft. I knew it was more than that. He was excited and wanted to share it with me. And although he said we had nothing to show for thirteen years, I think that's something.

Caroline's gone down to a four-day week at work, spending the other one volunteering at worthy inner-city projects. She loves it. G.o.d knows what all those public-sector poverty tsars are going to do for an income when she solves poverty and moves on to the next task though. Our old Friday foursome nights have become Sat.u.r.days. Friday is her and Graeme's night together, as their counsellor says they must 'set aside time to value their bond and reconnect'. Mindy and I agreed we've got to redouble our efforts with Graeme for her sake. It helps that he's suitably chastened enough not to take the mickey out of us as much as before.

Meanwhile, Katya's in Colombia, Ivor doesn't have lost weekends in Vice City and Mindy doesn't spend any time worrying about Detroit techno. They've never revealed precisely what went on that day Caroline dropped the truth bomb on them, which is mind-bending restraint in Mindy's case. I did get one thing out of her. She tells me she caught up with him, they looked at each other, and: 'We just knew. We knew it was true without either of us saying a word.' Those two, not saying a word to each other. Incredible in itself.

Mindy still refuses to completely revise her theory of attraction. She's altered the terms: now it's based on whether you've seen someone in their pants, claiming if she'd known Ivor had good muscle definition she'd have said she was up for it sooner. No one believes her. They are ridiculously, sickeningly happy, though they are considerate enough not to show it, if they can help it. I'd miss their bickering too much.

I let Mindy sign me up to My Single Friend. She insisted after she said my forays online 'were like Gerald Ratner with a sherry decanter'. ('Have you spellchecked it?' Ivor asked me. 'One of Mindy's own ads said she was a fan of j.i.z.z instead of jazz. Mind you, big response.') 'Rachel?'

A tall, dark-haired man with a lot of water on his face stands in front of me.

'Yes! Hi! Gregor?'

He sits, slapping down a wrinkled newspaper that I gather has been on his head in lieu of an umbrella.

'What would you like to drink?' I say.

'Have they got a menu?'

He plucks a printed slip of paper from a wooden block on the table and studies it. I try very very hard not to study his hair, and fail. What. The. Blazes ...? It's a p.r.o.nounced, obsidian-black widow's peak. What's most distracting, however, is it isn't apparently made of hair. It's like ... Velcro, or some scalp-based equivalent of astro-turf. It looks sewn on.

While we make introductory chat and Gregor asks for a lager, I feel irritation bubbling up, and then feel guilty for feeling irritated in case his hair fell out due to a trauma and he was misled by his follicular regeneration specialist and his wife left him over it. Seriously, though: why not put the plugs deal upfront? All his photos were artily-lit to conceal it. Surely it'd be wiser to filter the Hammer Horror enthusiasts, avoiding disappointment for everyone? I mean. There was well-meant Mindy bulls.h.i.t about beauty in my resume, but my properly-lit pictures were there as a visual corrective aid.

Stop being so superficial, I tell myself, personality is what counts. Personality is what you're here to enjoy.

'What's the concert you're going on to?' I ask.

'Michael Ball. A collection of show tunes. "Aspects of Love", and so on. Do you get down to the West End much?'

'Erm. No. I always mean to-'

'Oh, you should, you should. It's a fantastic night out, you know? Great entertainment.'

The waitress brings Gregor his pint and I notice he doesn't say thank you, or even acknowledge her. How early are you allowed to say: this is never gonna work?

'Why's a nice girl like you single, then?'

'Can nice girls not be single?'

'It was a compliment, if you're going to throw it back in my face ...'

'Uhm, OK, thanks. That's a big question ...'

His line of sight flickers to my chest while I'm talking and suddenly I'm sixteen years old, out with a boy who thinks he can look at chests and not be noticed doing it. Maybe it's a nervous tic and he's not doing that at all. I'm only wearing a dark sweater dress, after all, it's not as if it's revealing.

'... Why are you single?' I ask.

Gregor blows his cheeks out. 'Working long hours. International travel.'

'Right. For the bank.'

'I can pull down twenty, thirty K in bonuses in a good year. They want their pound of flesh, har har.'

At the word 'flesh' his eyes slither south again. He is! He's copping a goggle! Unbelievable.

Half an hour later, I am giving sincere thanks to the work ethic of Andrew Lloyd Webber that Gregor's gig starts early.

'This has been fun. Feel free to call me,' he says, tucking his chair back under the table. 'If I'm Stateside it might go to vee-mail but I'll pick it up.'

'Mmm, hmm,' I say, making the emphatic closed-mouth smile with vigorous nod that means yuh-huh, on a nippy day in h.e.l.l.

I could concede defeat and go home. That seems too much like setting a precedent that being out alone isn't fun, and being alone isn't good. I order another drink and make a note to self to bring a book next time.

Here's what I've decided. I will always miss Ben. I will always wonder what might have been if I'd said: 'Thanks for coming, Rhys, good effort, nice touch with the Brilliantine, but please excuse me while I pursue the man I'm really in love with.' But despite how dreadful that day in St John's was, I can't regret what I said to Ben. At least I tried. Rachel's maxim: fail again, fail differently.

Some people end up with their soul mates, like Mindy and Ivor. Some people end up with partners they can work at being happy with, like Caroline and Graeme. Some get second chances at getting it right, like Rhys and Claire. Some people get who they deserve, like Lucy and Matt. Some people will forever be a mystery, like Lucas and Natalie. He got cleared, they're back together, no further statements will be made. Other people, of which I might be one, end up on their own. And that's fine. I'll be all right.

I make a decision: I will book a trip to Rome for my wedding-day-that-wasn't. And I will speak Italian. Some.

69.

I'm prodding at the slice of orange and cinnamon stick floating on top of my wine with my teaspoon when the chair opposite me sc.r.a.pes across the floor.

'Is this seat taken?'

I look up. The spoon clatters into the saucer.

'The weather is end-of-the-world Blade Runner out there, isn't it? I'd forgotten the north-west's capacity to chuck it on you.'

I continue to stare blankly at Ben as he drapes his coat over the back of the chair. He doesn't look very soggy. He looks as per, as if he saved the world in time to make the appointment with his tailor.

'Saw you outside the library and followed you,' he says. 'You took the most roundabout route here, you know that? Then I sat over there in the corner and watched you in a creepy manner.' Ben peers into my gla.s.s. 'Any booze in that?'

'Yes.'

'Good-oh.'

'Are you here to serve me some kind of cease-and-desist special lawyer papers?'

'No, I'm going to get another drink. Ah, fantastic same as her? Yeah, cheers.'

He confirms his order through standard cafe-bar semaph.o.r.e with the waitress.

'Who was that with you, then?' he asks.

As I understand precisely nothing about what's happening, I'll answer the questions I'm given.

'Gregor.'

'New fella?'

'Uh. No. He likes musical theatre and looked at my t.i.ts every twelve minutes.'

Ben wrinkles his nose. 'Amateur hour. Everyone knows you pick up what you can on the periphery of your vision and a.s.semble the 3D with imagination.'

I shake my head as the urge to laugh battles with my extreme bafflement.

'But you're dating again?'

'Badly, but yes.'

'Glad to hear it.'

Ben says thank you for his wine, picks up his gla.s.s, takes a sip. It's then I spot the small but telling detail about his left hand. He sees that I see. He sets the cup back down.

'Liv and I are getting a divorce. I went down to London and we talked for a long time about what had gone wrong and decided it couldn't be fixed. It had nothing to do with any aggro at the wedding, I should say. That was more the death throes. It had been staring us in the face since before Manchester. We were playing for time, moving north, really.'

'I'm so sorry, Ben.'

I discover I am sorry. Very, very sorry, and sad for him. I wish I could say for sure I'd have felt that way before all self-interest was gone, I don't know that's true. What I do know, confirmed to me with Rhys's latest news, is that when you love someone, you want their happiness even when it's not going to involve you. Even when it depends on your lack of involvement.

'So am I.'

'You must be devastated.'

'In a way, it was worse when I knew it might happen, or it should happen, and we hadn't said it. I'm very sad, but resigned. This is better than tearing lumps out of one another until there's nothing left. You must know what I mean?'

I think about Rhys. 'Yes, I do.'

'Mulled wine,' Ben takes another sip. 'Quite nice, if wildly unseasonal.'

'Are you staying in Manchester?'

'Yes, I am.'

'Ben,' I say, cautiously. 'If you're here to say it's OK to be friends now you're separated ... I'm not sure I can be. We've had two goes at it and neither of them has ended well. I mean, friends can do things like write My Single Friend pitches for each other, like Mindy did for me. If I had to write yours, I'd be saying you're the most s.e.xist man I've ever met. And reeks. Wear a hazmat suit for copulation.'

Ben pretends to sniff his armpit and deadpans: 'Now you tell me?'

'You know what I mean. I can't be your dating buddy, or meet your new girlfriends. It's not going to work.'

'Mmm.' Ben fishes the cinnamon stick out of his drink between finger and thumb and puts it on the edge of the saucer. 'That belongs in pot pourri only.'

I can't tell how my words have been taken. It was hard to say, and hard-won wisdom.

'About being friends. I happen to agree it wouldn't work. I was angry when I last saw you. Only at myself, when I thought about it. You ought to know that I left that night of the ball because I was so sure so scared you'd pick Rhys over me, I didn't risk sticking around to see it happen. I dodged your calls for the same reason. I thought it was just confirming the bad news. I told myself that if it had been me you'd have torn after me at the Palace. But you'd told me how you felt and I had no business playing games, getting you to prove it. I never saw it from your point of view. You weren't indecisive, I was insecure. Then later when I heard for sure you were back with Rhys, I told myself there, that's the proof, I was right to doubt you. Until we were sat in that park, I'd never faced the fact I might've brought the situation about. I realised what a total idiot I'd been.'

He takes a sip of his drink. I'm not sure I can withstand going over this again. It's like rewinding a traffic camera clip of an accident.

'Then when I was honest with myself about the past, I could be honest with myself about the present. I started out with the wrong intentions, wanting to prove things to you in my stupid wounded pride.'

'What can you have needed to prove to me?'

'That I didn't mind what had happened. That I didn't ever think about you or wish things had turned out differently. Pretty soon the plan started to go wrong and we were sat in here with me trying not to wail do you know you broke my heart, b.i.t.c.h.'

Ben smiles to make it clear this is an ironic b.i.t.c.h, not an actual b.i.t.c.h.