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first evening when he moved into our house at Bristol. Then we’re in the kitchen, laughing as he’s giving me a cooking lesson. I see us in fancy dress, late that night, sitting down on the bench, talking. I picture the look in Joe’s eye when I’d asked what he wanted.
    The telephone rings. Edoardo tells Joe it’s Peta, before taking a cloth and wiping down the tables.
    ‘Tell her I’ll call back. I need to go. It was good to see you,’ he says in a way that suggests he wants little more to do with me.
    ‘Joe, wait, just one second,’ I say, urgency now in my voice. ‘The reason I’m here …’ I clear my throat; start again. ‘There’s something I need to tell you. It’s about Olly.’
    ‘How is he? Is he here?’
    ‘Joe, say something.’ Edoardo looks over to us, sympathy in his eyes.
    ‘I’m so sorry, Rebecca.’ He curls his hand into a fist. ‘He was one of my closest friends. I didn’t get to say goodbye.’
    ‘I should have told you. I wasn’t thinking straight, I had so much to organize with the funeral and—’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ he cuts me off. ‘We lost touch years ago. I’m responsible for that.’
    ‘It wasn’t all your fault.’
    ‘Rebecca, my leaving Bristol, it wasn’t just about you,’ he says, his tone hardening. ‘I left Bristol, I lost touch with Olly, because I was screwed up.’
    I take a sip of water. ‘Right.’
    ‘How long are you here for?’
    I tell him I’m not sure. It’s complicated. ‘You see, I’m pregnant. I’m having Olly’s baby.’
    Joe doesn’t utter a word. When I tell him Olly died before he knew he was going to be a father … ‘I’m very sorry, Rebecca,’ he says, his eyes softening when he sees my tears. He presses his head into his hands, lost as to what to say. ‘I’d like to write to Olly’s parents. Do you have their address?’ is the last thing he says to me before we part, and I have no idea if I shall see him again.

8
    As I drive to Pippa’s in Mum’s car, part of me is relieved that I have seen Joe and that he knows about Olly, but I also feel uncomfortable at how distant he was. Though what did I expect, especially after they way we’d left things at Bristol? That he would hold me in his arms?
    I’m thankful to be babysitting tonight. I need the distraction.
    Pippa lives approximately five miles out of Winchester, towards Stockbridge, in a small hamlet called Northfields. One potholed road, called The Street, runs through the hamlet in the shape of a horseshoe, leading back to the main road. She’s married to Todd, American and a successful businessman. She and Todd bought a plot of land with a dilapidated barn, which they converted into their large and beautiful home. Pippa once ticked Olly off for calling it a bungalow. ‘But it ispretty much a bungalow,’ he’d said to me later that night.
    Todd and Pippa met in London about nine years ago. Pippa had just returned from America. She was an excellent tennis player, with a world ranking of five hundred and forty-five, but she wasn’t quite good enough to play at Wimbledon and other Grand Slam events. She’d also confided in me that she’d lost that hunger to win. ‘I’m tired of training, Becca. I want to have a normal life.’
    So it was time for her to get a job. She found secretarial work in a jaded sports agency that needed major consultancy help from Todd. He strode into her soulless grey office; they clapped eyes on one another and lightning struck. Todd was thirteen years older than twenty-two-year-old Pippa, and he seemed so worldly-wise and debonair. He was also rich. Flowers and gifts were lavished upon her on a daily basis, but no marriage proposal was forthcoming. ‘What’s taking him so long ?’ she once asked me.
    ‘What’s the hurry? People don’t get married young these days.’
    ‘But you and Olly seem close,’ she said, almost implying that if it was a race I’d be in the lead.
    Olly proposed to me on my twenty-fourth