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Shanti is incredulous and slightly disgusted, a sharply brushed brow tugged upwards, her mouth in a half-snarl. ‘You know?Don’t piss me off. I’m sorry, are we twelve? Tell me more about theyou know, please. And make it fast. Aminah’s having a shower and Chioma is on an international call with her married boyfriend and girlfriend. As in the boyfriend and girlfriend are married to each other. She’s so hellbent on this throuple thing, when she knows she doesn’t have the bandwidth to manage that many people’s erotic energies. She’s quite a sensitive soul. Anyway, speaking of erotic energies, let’s get back to you and Malakai.’

Taking a deep fortifying breath, I unleash all the angst, all the tension, all the back and forth that has happened over the past six months. The liberation that comes with sharing with Shanti is surprising, but welcome, and a layer of anxiety lifts from my skin with it. Shanti immediately shakes my hand after.

‘You know what, friend? I’m impressed. This is some good, organic, homegrown sweet tea. Also I really didn’t think you had this in you. A secret affair—’

‘Hardly an affair.’

‘He fucked you against the London skyline.’

‘Well, technically that’s not where the main fucking occurred. It was actually—’

‘Anyway, has all of this made you catch feelings again?’

I pause to think about it, because how do I describe it? The fear isn’t that I’m catching feelingsagain, but that I’m being forced to confront feelings that never went away. And that those feelings may not even matter, because their existence does not mean Malakai and I are meant to be together, and they definitely don’t mean that Malakai feels the same way. I settle with a ‘No.’

Shanti’s sceptical. Her mouth twists into a dry smile. ‘Sure. Whatever you say. Look, I’m no Aminah, but I’m here if you need me, OK? Because I don’t know how you carried all this tea on your own. The need to gist would kill me.’

‘I mean it truly almost did. It’s juicy shit even for me. I’d be into it if it wasn’t giving me stress sweats.’

Shanti snorts and a smile tugs at my lips despite the direness of the situation. All of us are close as a foursome, but we’re naturally divided into closer pairs–me with Aminah and Chioma with Shanti–it works, feeds into our balance and functionality, but I’m warmed by the reminder that I really am held by my girls on all fronts.

Shanti stares at me incredulously. ‘Why are you smiling like that?’

To her horror, I launch at her, flopping onto where she is on the bed and kissing her cheek.

‘Thank you, Shanti. I needed this.’ I say it mostly to get on her nerves, cloying and sweet, and she mimics a retching sound.

‘Oh my God. Yeah, see, this is why I can’t be an Aminah replacement. You guys are too Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants.’

‘Nah. All of us, together, are Sisterhood of the Travelling Bants.’

‘All right. If you don’t let me go now, though, I’m gonna have to believe you hate me.’

‘No, Mummy.’ Aminah is resplendent in a heavily sequined white minidress, silver heels clicking against the tile as she paces. ‘We can’t add any more people to the list! It’s enough! Also, what do I care if your friend’s first daughter’s wedding colours were rose and mint like me, that was ten years ago–and no we can’t skip kente! What? Have you missed everything I have said for the last six months? If Kofi is wearing an agbada at the trad, how can I skip kente? We’re doing two outfits!’

Laide creeps up to her sister and does what none of us can do, which is take the phone from Aminah, and say, ‘Mummy, we love you, but Aminah is on her bachelorette right now and you are killing her vibe. Leave her alone for the next twenty-four hours, please. She will talk about inviting your old school-sister who you haven’t seen in thirty years when she’s back in London,’ and hangs up.

Relief washes through me. I’m glad to have one big sister on deck. (Aminah’s eldest sister was too pregnant to fly the twelve hours, and, besides this, very obviously didn’t want to come.) A blood sister can control the Mother Pressure without the threat of the mother thinking you’re a disrespectful badly brought-up influence on her daughter who should be banished from her life. Besides, the harshest thing I have said to Aminah’s mother is, ‘No thank you, Auntie, I just ate,’ and even then I ended up eating five puff puffs. I mouth a ‘thank you’ and Aminah tries to compose herself, picking up her glass again and glugging it down. The girls and I exchange a look. Things have been going relatively well; we’d gone on a pre-sunset boat tour while drinking some of South Africa’s best wines, and Aminah and I were relaxing more, leaning into the moment, laughing with each other. She’d sighed on the boat as she looked out onto the majestic, towering Table Mountain, set back against orange and lilac hues, looking as if it held all the mysteries in the universe.

‘Kiki, thanks for planning this,’ she said. ‘I know you’ve been busy.’

I threw an arm round her, drew her to me. ‘Are you joking? Wrangling three women with various dietary requirements who all wanted the second-biggest room was a piece of cake.’ I bumped my hip with hers, but she barely cracked a smile as she stared out into the water. There wasn’t even an attempt to shade. This gave me slight cause for concern. ‘Hey, is everything OK? With Kofi and stuff?’

Aminah nodded quickly. ‘Oh, Kofi is amazing. Like, a dream. You know he booked a spa weekend for me for next week because he just wants me to chill out? I just. . .I don’t know.’ She paused, and made sure the rest of the crew were at the back of the boat, still talking to the Calvin Klein-model-looking tour-guide, asking him where the best spots to go out in the area are, whether he can come, and whether he has friends.

I shifted closer to her. She was wearing shades and a floppy hat with her white sundress, so I could barely see her face, but, still, I felt that something was off in my bones. Aminah doesn’t getdown.She has moments of despondency that she feels and then shakes off. This felt like something deeper than I’ve seen before.

‘Aminah.’

‘You ever just wanna run away and open a bakery?’

OK, seriously,whohad taken my sister’s brain?! ‘I’m. . .Aminah, what?’

‘Like, theoretically. When we were walking through town earlier and we went into that bakery called Lesedi’s and I noticed that the lady who worked there looked way too hot and young to own a bakery. Not that you can’t be hot to own a bakery, but, you know, normally, I imagine them to be owned by either grandmas or posh white men from Fulham who got burnout from working in tech with easy access to seed money.Anyway,while you were taking that phone call from Taré, I got talking to Lesedi and she said she had this high-powered job at some legal firm and she had made her parents very happy, but she loved baking. Always has done since she was a kid. Collected all the baking books, and people loved her stuff. Anyway, one day she stopped and questioned why she was doing law. You know what she realised? Not one of the reasons was because of her. Anyway, she quit and used the money she’d been saving for a house for the bakery. Isn’t that wild?’

I nodded slowly, trying my hardest to follow. ‘Yes. Aminah. . .do you want to quit PR?’

Aminah huffed out a laugh. ‘My job is literally to control how people think. No, it’s my dream job.’ She paused and sipped at the wine she was holding. ‘It’s just a lot sometimes, you know. It’s a lot, balancing it all. Being good at my job, being a good daughter, daughter-in-law, wife. And it’s not about Kofi either–I love him.’ Her voice was convinced, unshakeable as she leaned over the white bars and looked out at the crisp, rippling blue, lined up against the mountain. ‘But I just sometimes feel like getting married is part of a long list of things I’ve done because I have to—’