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looked away, not wanting to see, not wanting to acknowledge the suspicion that had been growing for several weeks now – that she was interested in him. Why did this make me feel so panicky? After all, they were both free, no betrayal would be involved, everyone had behaved honourably. I hated to think that I wanted to be separate from Amos yet still have him hanker after me. When she spoke next, her voice was determinedly casual. ‘Is he taking part in this?’
    I hesitated. ‘I haven’t asked him. Yet.’
    ‘And it won’t be awkward?’
    ‘Why would it be? It was perfectly amicable, after all.’
    Sonia smiled at me, the moment of awkwardness gone. ‘Breakups are never amicable,’ she said. ‘They’re catastrophes – or they’re amicable for one person and not for the other. When it’s amicable it’s only because neither of them was committed in the first place.’
    I took a sip, more than a sip, of wine and felt it sting my gums. There was a familiar ache in my chest when I thought about Amos – not pain, but the memory of pain, which has lodged itself in your bones and become part of who you are. ‘Well,’ I said lightly, ‘we managed to remain friends, kind of, whatever that means about our relationship in the first place.’ All those high hopes and buoyant plans for the future that hadn’t exploded in some climactic break-up but had gradually withered and died, leaving behind a long-drawn-out dejection, a disappointment in us, in myself. All those months when we both knew but couldn’t admit that the journey we had set out on together was petering out and that one day soon our paths would separate. In some ways I would have preferred Sonia’s catastrophe to the gradual rusting and corrosion we had experienced with a sense of helpless regret.
    ‘Who actually ended it?’
    ‘It wasn’t like that.’
    ‘Someone must have said the words.’
    ‘Probably it was me. But only because he didn’t have the courage.’
    ‘Was he very upset?’
    ‘I don’t know. I was – but you know that. You saw some of it.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Sonia. ‘Sad, drunk evenings.’ We grinned at each other ruefully. It seemed a long time ago now; long enough for Sonia to be thinking of taking my place.
    I gave a little shiver. ‘You got me through. You and Sally.’
    ‘And whisky.’ Sonia always deflected sentimentality.
    ‘And whisky, true. Whisky, beer, coffee, music. Speaking of which…’
    ‘Will Amos want to play in a band with you?’
    ‘I haven’t asked. I don’t know.’
    Sonia looked at me intently, then gave a nod. ‘You waited until the third glass of wine before asking me, didn’t you?’
    ‘The second, I think.’
    ‘The third, definitely,’ Sonia said, taking a sip as if to confirm it. ‘On the minus side, you’ve only heard me in the choir.’
    ‘And that karaoke night last year.’
    ‘Was that me?’
    ‘One of the best versions of “I Will Survive” I’ve ever heard.’
    ‘On the plus side, I don’t know any of the people who’ll be in the audience. Does it matter if you make a fool of yourself in front of people who don’t know you?’
    ‘It’s like a tree falling in the forest.’
    After
    I took my mobile out of my bag and turned it on, punched in the first three digits of the number. Then I changed my mind and turned it off again, dropping it back into the bag as if it might burn my fingers. I had read articles in newspapers about how experts can tell not just whom you called on your phone, but precisely where the call was made from. People were caught out like that, alibis broken.
    I couldn’t use the landline, and I couldn’t use his mobile, wedged into my pocket. For a brief moment, I thought of giving up and simply dialling 999, weeping to the impersonal voice at the other end. Thoughts hissed in my brain and I tried to separate them out, think each through. I picked up the keys from the bowl, checking to make sure the flat key was among them. Then – through my