Prime Time

by Jane Wenham-Jones

Genres: Women's Fiction; Clean & Wholesome Romance; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

If you love Milly Johnson, Trisha Ashley and Catherine Alliott, you'll love Jane Wenham-Jones's deliciously entertaining novels ! 'Funny, realistic and full of insight' Katie Fforde 'I love Jane's writing!' Jill Mansell 'Feel-good' Woman & Home Laura Meredith never imagined herself appearing on TV - she's too old, too flabby, too downright hormonal, and much too busy holding things together for her son, Stanley, after her husband left her for a younger, thinner replacement. But best friend Charlotte is a determined woman and when Laura is persuaded on to a daytime show to talk about her PMT, everything changes. Suddenly there's a camera crew tracking her every move and Laura finds herself an unlikely star. But as things hot up between her and gorgeous TV director, Cal, they're going downhill elsewhere. While Laura's caught up in a heady whirlwind of beauty treatments, makeovers and glamorous film locations, Charlotte's husband, Roger, is concealing a guilty secret, Stanley's got problems at school, work's piling up, and when Laura turns detective to protect Charlotte's marriage, things go horribly wrong. The champagne's flowing as Laura's prime time TV debut looks set to be a hit. But in every month, there's a "Day Ten" ... Don't miss Jane's other delightfully entertaining titles, filled with humour and insight: The Big Five O, Mum in the Middle, One Glass is Never Enough and Perfect Alibis are all out now!

Release date: January 12, 2012

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 350

Sample

Chapter One

Recent research has shown that the kind of male face a woman finds attractive can differ depending on where she is in her menstrual cycle. For instance, if she is ovulating she is drawn to men with rugged, masculine features. Whereas if she is menstruating she is more prone to be attracted to a man with a heavy pair of scissors shoved in his forehead …

Ho bloody ho. I sit on my hands so I can’t punch the computer screen. Hilarious, these Internet jokes. Or they might be if not so close to the truth. I quite often imagine Daniel cowering in a corner, whimpering while I take a blunt instrument to him. Or the way he might look if I wiped away that supercilious expression by treading on it. Especially on Day 19. Day 19 of my menstrual cycle is when I am at my most malevolent and think my darkest thoughts. Then I write vitriolic letters in my head and fantasise about wreaking revenge on everyone who has ever done me wrong. It is when I smash crockery, forget things, scream, shout and eat four KitKats without drawing breath. It is Day 19 today and already I am …

‘Am I going to Dad’s tonight?’

Stanley appeared in the doorway in his school shirt and boxers. His hair, as usual, stood up in tufts. He yawned and wrinkled his freckled nose. ‘Do you know where my tie is?’

I gripped the edge of the keyboard. ‘No, I do not know where your tie is. It is wherever you left it, the same as it is every morning when you ask me, and yes, you are going to your father’s. We’ve been talking about it for five days. Since the last time you went, in fact. Which was last Sunday. When your father said he would pick you up this Friday, which is today, and you could stay the night with him and he would take you to the football match. You know you are going to your bloody father’s …’ I clapped a hand to my mouth and bit it.

Stanley’s face, which had lit up at the thought of 22 blokes kicking a bag of air, clouded again. ‘I hope She isn’t there.’

‘She will be,’ I said grimly, suffused with shame at swearing and giving my son’s future therapist even more material to work with. ‘She lives there.’

She is Emily, Daniel’s new girlfriend, who is totally welcome to him because I wouldn’t have him back if his was the last paunch on earth. She has set up home with him which I don’t care about at all. I do think, however, it smacks of indecent haste as far as Stanley, who has to visit them, is concerned. Them and their laminate floors and low black coffee tables and single lilies in tall glass tubes (I didn’t press Stanley for these details – he gave them up quite readily under cross-examination).

Stanley wrinkled his nose even more. ‘I can’t find my trousers either.’

‘Boiler!’ I got up from my desk in our tiny spare bedroom and stomped to the door in two paces. ‘They were muddy, remember? I washed them. I told you they were on the boiler to dry. I knew you weren’t listening … And why weren’t you dressed ages ago? I’ve got to get this lot finished today,’ I shrieked, jabbing a finger at the pile of paper teetering on the top of the ancient filing cabinet. ‘And how can I do that with you constantly interrupting me?’

‘All right. Take a chill-pill.’ Stanley sighed and plodded across the landing. He knows when it is that time of the month.

‘Keep it on,’ he called from the safety of the stairs while I kicked the waste bin. ‘Will you make me some toast?’

One, two, three, four, five. Breathe in and out. Adopt sing-song voice to disguise the fact I want to throttle him . ‘Yes darling,’ I trilled through gritted teeth. ‘I will make you toast even though you are 11 and a half and quite old enough to make it yourself. Even if I am right in the middle of a paragraph.’

‘You were doing emails.’

‘Work ones. When I was 11 …’

‘You got up at dawn to scrub all the floors, made breakfast for the whole family, did all the washing and walked through fire and flood 20 miles to school …’ Stanley poked his head back round the door and grinned.

I glared. ‘Just get ready!’

The bloody toaster has a mind of its own. It knows when I am tense and uptight and in a hurry and it quite deliberately sends the bread out pale and flaccid, then, when you push the lever back down for just ten more seconds, burns it to a cinder.

I hurled four blackened slices out of the back door, where a squawking herring gull immediately pounced. ‘Bugger off, you vulture,’ I snarled. It ignored me and swallowed down the first slice whole. It stuck out in a ridge from the creature’s fat white neck as the bird salivated, pop-eyed.

‘Peanut butter or Marmite?’ I leapt onto the toaster to stop it cremating the third lot. ‘Juice or milk?’

Stanley heaved a rucksack through the kitchen door. ‘Can I have hot chocolate?’

Hot chocolate, yes, yes. If we’ve got enough milk which we probably haven’t. It’s all feast or famine in our house. There’s either six pints in the fridge door, in various stages of becoming cheese, or there’s half an inch which the whole world wants.

I got out two more slices of bread for me. I was going to start the Atkins again but who’s got time to start buggering about with eggs first thing in the morning? And anyway carbs release serotonin which is supposed to keep you sane (fat bloody chance) and Marmite is full of B vitamins – ditto. The peanut butter jar was empty. Carefully scraped out, lid screwed tightly back on, replaced on the shelf. The hot chocolate drum was bereft of hot chocolate.

I waved it at Stanley. ‘What is the bloody point of putting it back like this? Why don’t you write it on the shopping list instead? I am not psychic, Stanley. I can’t mind-read or see through cardboard.’ I poured milk into a mug and plonked it down in front of him. It slopped and sent white drops across the table. ‘Damn it.’

Stanley picked up the mug and began to drink with maddening slowness. He chewed on a corner of toast and flicked open his PlayStation magazine.

‘Stop doing that, you bastard  …’ Stanley’s head shot up as I hurled myself at the toaster that was belching out black smoke. ‘I don’t eat carbohydrates anyway!’ I yelled, chucking more burnt offerings through the door and restraining myself from ripping the plug from the wall and hurling the toaster after them.

‘Stop shouting!’ Stanley yelled back.

I picked up a J Cloth and scrunched it into a hard ball. ‘I’m talking to the toaster,’ I shrieked. ‘Not you …’

Stanley sighed.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘It’s OK.’

I ran a hand through his spiky hair, leaning over to pick up the crust he’d left. ‘Look at the time – we’re going to be really late now,’ I said, with my mouth full. ‘You must go and clean your teeth. Have you checked whether you’ve got enough money? Is your phone charged? I want you to text me when you get to your father’s. I want to know you’ve been picked up safely …’

‘I will.’ Stanley shook his head at me. ‘Don’t stress.’

‘I’m not stressing. I just worry about you.’ All of a sudden I felt my chin trembling and I turned away quickly and looked in the sink for some crockery to break when he’d gone to school. Get a bloody grip , stop bloody bursting into tears over nothing. Be nice …

I got one of my secret supply of plain chocolate Bounty bars out of the tin hidden behind the teabags. ‘Take one of these for break.’

Stanley smiled. ‘I did yesterday.’

How it takes Stanley 20 minutes to brush his teeth I don’t know, but it does. Another five minutes goes on putting his shoes on. He ambled his way to the front door as I squawked my way through the daily check-list. ‘Money? Food? Drinks? Phone?’ (Here there was a short interlude while we discovered it was still upstairs and needing charging) ‘Homework? Games kit?’ Stanley’s rucksack was a solid block I could barely lift.

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he said wearily.

‘Overnight stuff?’

‘Yes .’

‘Let’s go then,’ I cried brightly. The quiet night in on my own I’d been looking forward to all week suddenly seemed a rather dismal prospect.

I picked up my car keys and strode to the front door.

‘Mum!’ Stanley shrieked. ‘You’re still in your dressing gown!’

So I was. It wouldn’t bother me driving like that but Stanley still hasn’t recovered from the day when the head of Year Seven came across the road to reprimand me about stopping on the zigzag lines and I was wearing a nightie and slippers (I’ve never recovered either – he’s really quite attractive and I hadn’t even had a shower).

I ran upstairs for some tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt. ‘Don’t worry,’ I called heroically. ‘I’ll get you there …’

It takes twelve minutes to drive to Highcourt House Grammar, nine and a half if I break the speed limit and the lollipop lady at the top of the hill nips out of the way. Today she was on the pavement, deep in conversation, and only three of the five sets of traffic lights we encountered were red. My china might be safe after all. We pulled up outside school, at exactly 8.35 – I could hear the first bell clanging. ‘There you go!’ I said triumphantly. ‘You have got clean socks, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, Mum.’ Stanley got out of the car.

‘Your bag!’

Stanley shook his head at me and heaved the rucksack out after him.

‘That bag’s so heavy – I do worry about your back.’

‘It’s OK, Mum, don’t fuss.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow night.’

‘Yep.’

‘I’ll get us something nice to eat.’

‘OK.’

‘I’m sorry for being such an old dragon and for shouting so much this morning.’

‘It’s OK.’

Stanley got out of the car and hoisted the rucksack onto his back, frowning with concentration as he struggled to get his arms through the straps. As he shut the door, my solar plexus went into spasm. I jumped out of the car, leaving the engine running, and ran round it after him.

‘Stanley,’ I said, as he began to wander off, ‘I really love you. You’re a lovely, kind boy and gorgeous and I’m so proud of you …’

He stopped, rolled his eyes and looked nervously at three passing girls. ‘Do not,’ he hissed, through gritted teeth, ‘kiss me.’

‘Coffee, hurry, urgent!’

By the time I got back, Charlotte was already on the doorstep, hopping with impatience.

‘I think we’re out of milk.’ I growled, sticking my key in the lock.

She followed me into the hall. ‘Hello Charlotte,’ she intoned. ‘And how are you today? How lovely to see you, oh best friend of mine …’

‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’

‘I am. I’m doing a viewing round the corner.’ Charlotte is Wainwright & Co Estate Agents’ top negotiator and, despite the ailing state of the economy, still earns herself a small fortune in commission, though how she ever sells anything by spending her entire working week in my kitchen is a mystery.

‘Looks to me like you’re here, holding me up …’

‘Laura Meredith, you are a terrible old bag,’ said Charlotte, shooing Boris, my large tabby cat, off the work surface and putting the kettle on.

I sat down at the table and put my head in my hands. ‘Yes, I know. I was gruesome to Stanley this morning. Chalked up a whole load more WIT points. Referred to Daniel as ‘your bloody father’ – not something they recommend in the “how to handle your separation so your child’s not damaged” handbook – and then mortified him by hugging him outside school.’

‘It’s one’s job to embarrass one’s children,’ said Charlotte. ‘it’ll toughen him up for when he’s got a wife.’ She ran her hands through her frizzy blonde hair. ‘I called Becky a little bitch last night – more WIT points for her too.’

WIT stands for When-in-Therapy. It goes without saying that with a mother like me (and a traitorous, philandering father who can’t keep it in his trousers) Stanley will probably succumb to treatment at about 22. So far he has enough material to keep him going, at two sessions a week, until he’s past 30. I keep a mental tally of my wrongdoings to supply to him when the time comes. So the shrink can cut straight to the chase.

‘I hope that bloody Emily woman doesn’t make any more comments to upset him,’ I said. ‘I don’t want him to have low self-esteem – and you know what she’s like.’

Emily is blonde and perfect. Pin thin, given to wearing sharp little suits and spiky heels. Daniel is smitten. As well he might be – he probably can’t believe his luck. There he is, 47, with a receding hairline and a beer gut and there she is, 28 years old (a whole decade younger than me – bitch), perched in their minimalist flat on her pert little buttocks, while I sit here on my droopy ones. Actually there is more than a decade between us. I might pretend I’m 39 but really I’m 42. All my 40th birthday cards – apart from the ones full of witticisms about being over the hill and one’s teeth falling out – were at pains to point out that I was now entering my prime. It doesn’t feel that way to me. Though She is, undoubtedly, in hers.

‘Wait till she has his baby,’ said Charlotte, in what she clearly imagined was a comforting manner. ‘Remember Karina being all distraught because Mark’s new bird was all blonde and willowy and made her feel like an elephant? Until they started producing. Now she’s put on about three stone and looks a right mess. Karina calls them Mark and Stretch-Mark.’

I laughed, although the thought of Daniel with a new baby had sent a shaft of pain right through me.

‘She’s as thick as two short planks too,’ said Charlotte.

‘Emily isn’t,’ I said gloomily.

Emily is very clever with a degree in Food Science and a lucrative job being a food “stylist”. She spends her days arranging beautiful, inedible displays – waxing fruit or spraying pork pies with varnish so they shine for the camera. Making food look pretty before it’s thrown away – that’s her speciality. We wouldn’t actually want to eat anything, would we?

‘She had the bloody cheek to tell Stanley the fat content of his pizza!’ I said.

Charlotte tutted disapprovingly. ‘You haven’t got any biscuits,’ she said, plaintively shaking the tin.

‘I ate those last night – but there’s more.’

Charlotte got up and opened the door above the bread bin. Because I live a short walk from her office and she likes lots of tea breaks, she knows the inside of my cupboards as well as her own. Her hand hovered over the packets. ‘Digestives or custard creams?’

‘Both.’

I wouldn’t mind but he only met Emily because of me. I was the one writing the brochure copy for the presentation of Happy Pig Pies to all the supermarket chains. It was me who’d done such a totally brilliant stayed-up-all-night-to-bloody-finish-it job on the captions for the display boards that Mike, Creative Director of A & G Design & Advertising and my one-time boss till I gave birth, dropped out of the rat race and went freelance from home (a somewhat hit and miss affair. Note for other mothers considering same: do not leave the stills for your company’s newest account on the floor when potty-training), suggested I come along and swell the numbers and quaff the free champagne.

It was me who asked if Daniel could come too, since he’d been complaining that he’d hardly seen anything of me all week and I thought we could have a nice evening out afterwards.

And there she was – Emily – putting the finishing touches to her Pie Tower, a massive golden structure of interlocking pastry mounds, a veritable triumph of cold-water crust, doing creative things with highly-polished tomatoes and sprigs of colour-enhanced parsley.

Daniel walked over there and I heard him quite distinctly giving that deep-throated chuckle someone once told him was sexy (it might have been me – bastard!) and saying what a turn-on it was to see a woman in a pinny and high heels. And she – instead of slapping him, like any self-respecting post-feminist – simpered. She shouldn’t have been wearing heels anyway. What about Health and Safety?

‘You’re not listening!’ said Charlotte loudly.

‘I am,’ I said, guiltily, realising I was holding two custard creams.

‘What did I say then?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘What are you doing tonight?

‘Sleeping.’

‘No, you’re not – you’re coming out for a drink.

‘I’ve got too much work on.’

That’s what Daniel said, from then on. Too much work on to go out with me, or come home on time. So much work on that he suddenly had a whole lot of calls on his mobile that necessitated him going into another room, and texts like you wouldn’t believe! Every time I looked at him he was fiddling with that phone – I picked it up once, when it beeped, just to see what he’d do. Haven’t seen him move so fast since we went to Egypt and he insisted on eating the salad.

‘Work,’ he said, ‘so much damn work.’ Did he think I was totally stupid? Daniel is an inspector at the tax office in Maidstone. In 14 years of marriage I’ve never known him work past six. It’s nine to five with an occasional bit of report-writing in the evenings, so he can knock off at four instead. The whole point of the civil service is that they work to rule.

I did enquire, of course. He looked furtive. ‘A big inspection coming up,’ he said vaguely. ‘An investigation to prepare. A seminar on evaluating assets …’ Turned out the sort of assets he was evaluating were spread-eagled in a flat in Tunbridge Wells being willingly given up to an in-depth inspection during his flexi-time.

‘He’s old enough to be her father,’ I said indignantly, reaching for another biscuit.

‘Becky’s on a sleepover,’ Charlotte said, ignoring me. ‘Though God knows why they call it that. The last time she had one at our place they were still on Facebook at 4 a.m. And Roger and Joe will be glued to the football. So I’ve told them I’m hitting the town. With you.’

I shook my head. ‘I really don’t fancy going out. I’m uptight, bloated, fat, ugly, and bad-tempered with deadlines coming out of my ears and the washing to do.’

‘You’re always like that.’

‘And I’ve got to get some shopping in tonight – those biscuits are the only food in the house.’

‘We’ll eat in the wine bar.’

‘There’s something on TV.’

‘Video it. I’ll see you at Green’s at 8 p.m.’

‘I’m tired.’

Charlotte stood up. ‘‘You’re boring me now, love.’

I am boring myself.

Chapter Two

Charlotte likes Greens Wine Bar because it’s “happening”. As far as I can see, it’s happening to someone else. We’ve been drinking in Greens for years, seen it through a variety of different owners, menus, and internal décor. Some things have never changed. I’ve stood at that oak bar with its rows of wine glasses overhead and its floor to ceiling wine racks and scrubbed wooden floorboards on and off since I was 18 and champing at the bit to get to London and begin my glittering career.

In those days, I thought London was happening and didn’t realise I would one day crave to be back at the seaside where the water didn’t run grey when you washed your hair and the woman in the post office not only knew your name but remembered your mother had just had her varicose veins done.

If I popped down for the weekend I always came in for a drink, even when it went through its grubby dive-like times or once, horrifically, its short-lived fruit machine, plastic stool, and karaoke phase. I’ve been in lots of pubs in Broadstairs at various stages of my life but it’s this bar that evokes the memories, that always makes me think of being young or happy or in love or up the duff …

We finally moved back to Broadstairs when I was pregnant and thought it would be nice to be near my mother (you live and learn). Daniel was taken with the property prices and how much more we could get for our money if we lived down here and he transferred to a Kent office. I think that’s where the shock lies, really. He was supposed to be the boring, stable one, who thought about capital growth and pension yields, and I was the bohemian wild child. Now look at us.

I’m walking around in big knickers and a pair of old slippers, nagging Stanley to death and he’s buying trendy new trainers (they are quite cool, reported Stanley in surprise) and finding all sorts of uses for a mashed avocado (they apparently have a huge, pear-filled bowl on their granite worktop and I can’t imagine her eating them – too many calories).

Now I am thoroughly over Daniel, I would quite like to have a bit of a fling involving a few vegetables myself but where do I find the men? Once I would have come here to Greens. Now, if there are any fanciable blokes in here, I’m old enough to be their mother. And if I’m not, and they’re even vaguely good-looking, then they’re gay. This does not deter Charlotte.

‘Ooh, look! Clive!’ She shot off across the bar the moment we got in there. In a town where “man falls from bicycle” is front page news, Clive enjoys near-celebrity status. He has a TV production company, a weekend cottage in Broadstairs, and a Bollinger habit that keeps him pretty popular with the girls who own Greens.

He was sitting at a round table in the window, wearing Armani and a delicious aftershave I could pick up at ten paces, champagne bucket before him. Charlotte wedged herself down on the window seat next to him. Even though she knows it’s Jack behind the bar who Clive hankers after, Charlotte enjoys what she sees as their flirtation.

‘Darlings!’ Clive swept back his glossy brown hair with a toss of his head and kissed each of us on both cheeks. ‘How are we doing?’

Charlotte viewed him through lowered lashes. ‘Laura’s got shocking PMT so we’re here for medicinal purposes.’

‘Have you really?’ Clive looked concerned.

‘Oh, it’s nothing.’ I shook my head, embarrassed, and glared at Charlotte.

She laughed, unabashed. ‘Once we get a few drinks down her throat, her fangs will subside.’

I glared some more. Clive leant out and took my hand. ‘You must come and sit down here. I’ll get two more glasses.’

‘I’m quite interested in the whole female hormonal issue,’ he said when he had poured us each a glass of fizz and I had drunk most of mine in one gulp. ‘I’ve been working on a documentary for Channel Four – and they’ve done some research which suggests that more than half of all women are governed emotionally by their menstrual cycle. We’re planning on doing it as a topic for Rise Up with Randolph : are women at the mercy of their hormones?’

‘Rise Up with Randolph ? That oily creep?’ snorted Charlotte. ‘I didn’t know you did that.’

‘Actually he’s very caring,’ said Clive. ‘It’s been a huge success – the ratings are going up all the time and it’s really putting Yellow Door Productions on the map. We’ve been tackling some really key issues – child abuse, drug addiction, as well as the usual infidelity/he slept with my sister type shows. They always go down well. Now for this PMT programme, we’ve got a woman who threw her husband down the stairs and another who got six months for threatening to stab the …’

‘I’m not that bad!’ I said hotly, pushing the incident with Daniel and the bag of frozen chops to the back of my mind.

‘Of course not, poppet,’ Clive patted my hand. ‘Irritability?’ he asked soothingly. ‘Short temper? Weight gain, bloating, feelings of low self-worth …?’

I scowled.

‘She’s got all of them,’ said Charlotte.

‘Not all the time,’ I explained crossly. ‘On Day Two I feel a deep sense of calm and on Days Three and Four I’m really quite sane and energised – give or take that I’m carrying around four pounds of extra fluid and look like a hippo. Then Days Six to Nine, I feel terrific – get loads done, am perfectly normal and positive, then there’s a bit of a wobble on Day Ten and then …’

‘This is fascinating,’ Clive was gazing into my eyes. ‘You are so in touch with it all – so precise …’ He stared at the ceiling, hand outstretched before him as if about to make a great pronouncement, and then looked back at me again. ‘How is that?’

I shrugged. ‘I went to a nutritionist. She got me to keep a diary. How I felt, what I ate –’ I paused, thinking I would spare Clive the details of the in-depth analysis of bodily functions and girth measurements I had also undergone. ‘And there was a clear pattern.’

‘How fascinating’ said Clive again, still gazing at me with something close to rapture.

‘Yes, my husband thought so too,’ I said waspishly. ‘It was his idea.’

Because, having jogged along quite happily for a decade with me being gruesome for several days a month, he suddenly decided that he couldn’t stand it. And then, having spent six months shagging himself stupid with another woman and barely speaking to me, he had the barefaced cheek to blame the break-up of our marriage on my mood swings.

‘And has it helped?’ Clive asked eagerly.

‘Yes – he left me.’

Charlotte smiled brightly. ‘But she’s much better off without him and we’re going to find her someone else lovely.’ She gave me a kick under the table. ‘So it’s all for the best.’

‘It’s all terrific,’ I growled. ‘I am ecstatic.’

It was probably Emily who suggested the nutritionist. Emily is a vegetarian who eats no dairy and only does organic. Her moods are totally stable and she probably takes the pill all year round. I should imagine periods are much too messy for her to contemplate.

‘Have you tried any supplements?’ enquired Clive, looking from one to the other of us with a slightly desperate smile. ‘One of the researchers was talking about oil of evening primrose …’

‘Yeah, and starflower oil and B vitamins and magnesium and zinc … I’ve got them all at home.’

‘I think you’re supposed to take them,’ said Charlotte.

I pulled a face at her.

‘I believe a lot of it is down to diet,’ said Clive, hurriedly refilling glasses.

‘Yes this nutritionist – Kristin – she’s a friend of Charlotte’s, actually  ’

‘She’s boring,’ Charlotte added. ‘Doesn’t drink …’

‘She said to cut out wheat, sugar, and alcohol,’ I continued.

‘And has that helped?’ Clive asked earnestly.

Charlotte raised her eyebrows at me.

I took another swallow of champagne. ‘Er – not really.’

The bar had filled up with a lot of young girls who I noticed were, each and every one of them, very thin. I studied the one nearest to me who was about 25. She was wearing a cropped T-shirt and revealing a band of perfectly flat, brown stomach. Her upper arms were beautifully toned, her thighs enviably slim.

When did young people start getting so attractive? When I was in my 20s, I was a slightly less blobby version of how I am now, with fewer wrinkles and probably a smaller bum. But I didn’t look like that. Now everyone under 30 is totally gorgeous. There was a song playing that I didn’t know the name of but I remembered it was one Stanley liked. I felt like everyone’s grandmother and wished I could go home.

But Clive had ordered another bottle of Bolly and Charlotte, somewhat uncharacteristically, seemed to have forgotten we were going to eat. So I was also getting light-headed. ‘Crisps, anyone?’ I asked.

‘Not for me, darling.’ Clive got a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and gazed at them longingly.

Charlotte looked apologetic. ‘Oh, sorry, I was so starving I had to have a sandwich before I came out.’

‘Thanks,’ I muttered. ‘I thought we were eating here.’

Charlotte shrugged. ‘OK then, I’ll have some cheese and onion. But aren’t you supposed to be eating lots of vegetables?’ she added.

I hate her sometimes.

‘I can do you some crudités and hummus,’ said Sarah, one of the owners of Greens, from behind the bar. ‘Are you OK?’ she said peering closer. I looked over to the open door and beyond, where Clive and Charlotte were puffing away on the pavement outside. Charlotte suddenly threw back her head and laughed and nodded vigorously in my direction, clearly agreeing I was a mad old bag.

‘Just tired, old, fat, and hormonal.’

‘Sounds like me,’ Sarah said cheerfully (and wildly inaccurately – since she is a slim and attractive redhead who is younger than me). She deftly opened a bottle of red wine and reached up for glasses. ‘I’ve eaten four packets of Maltesers today, screamed at the kids, and threatened Richard with divorce at least twice.’

‘Hmm,’ I said, ‘I must get on to that …’

Sarah had turned to ring something up on the till. ‘Don’t rush into anything,’ she said over her shoulder.

Sarah was lovely when I told her about Daniel. Her first marriage had broken up a couple of years back, leaving her with three kids to look after on her own. ‘It’s hard, I know,’ was all she’d said, but she’d poured me a large glass of wine on the house and been full of concern and sympathy ever since.

‘How’s Stanley?’ she asked now, coming back to stand opposite me.

I shook my head, feeling suddenly miserable. ‘I don’t know really. It’s all very difficult for him, it must be. Father clears off, new school, me all stressed out …’

‘It gets easier,’ said Sarah. ‘Charlie went through a bad patch when Paul and I split up but he came out of it – he’s really happy now, gets on well wit