While she had her phone out, she thumbed through Facebook. Melissa had already posted, obviously. Apparently her daughter had gone up to the next stage reading book. This was a relatively tame piece of self-promotion when compared to Melissa’s recent epistles in which her child was ‘eating a home-grown strawberry’ and ‘discussing Brexit’. At five years old.

Kate never actually posted anything on Facebook. She just crept around it reading other people’s updates about their perfect lives: a bit like self-flagellation without the need for extra equipment. It was surprising how bad you could make yourself feel just by checking the profiles of your high-achieving, Tough Mudder-running ex-schoolmates. Or your career-driven, designer-clad ex-work colleagues. Or indeed your good-looking, saxophone-playing ex-boyfriends.

She’d bumped into Tim again at the hospital. Wandering round those soulless corridors, trying to remember which colour signs she was supposed to be following. She hated it: the smell, the squeaky floor and the hushed voices everywhere. Nosocomephobia, it was called – a fear of hospitals. Another useless nugget of information gleaned from her parents’ love of quiz shows. Between them they could have answered the whole of a Trivial Pursuits box; even the Arts and Literature questions.

Tim had spotted her first. ‘Kate? Kate, is that you?’

She’d turned and seen him down the corridor. Her traitorous heart had flipped. Thirteen years and he didn’t look any different. Thick, dark hair, tight jeans, black shirt and some kind of metal symbol on a leather thong around his neck. Wasn’t he a little old to still be dressing like that? The young nurse checking him out as she walked past hadn’t seemed to think so. Don’t waste your time on this one, love.

Kate swallowed. Frowned. And pretended she was running through a mental Rolodex to work out who he was. ‘Tim? Tim Watson? Oh, my gosh! How are you?’

When you meet up with your ex-boyfriend from ten years ago, you are supposed to look fabulous. Kate, on the other hand, had looked like a crap-bag. She’d just arrived at the hospital after wrestling Thomas in and out of the shower before lying next to him in bed, praying for him to go to sleep before the end of visiting hours. Luke had told her to leave Thomas to him, but how could she leave the house to the soundtrack of her son crying for her? It made her stomach hurt. Besides, Thomas always went to sleep quicker with her than Luke. He’d twiddled her hair into a set of complicated knots that she hadn’t had time to brush out properly before dashing to the hospital to spend the next two hours sitting by her dad’s bedside, willing him to wake up.

Tim had walked over with a huge grin on his face and kissed her on the cheek. Like they’d only seen each other yesterday. ‘How great to see you. I’m just visiting my sister; she’s had surgery on her foot.