It was all there, in those two little words: and I'd thought it such a state secret. Such a revelation. I was pretty sure I talked the talk about them both when I came back from dates, said what a marvelous time I'd had. Clearly I wasn't going to win a BAFTA. Celia stared diplomatically out of the window, knowing, occasionally, when to stop. Knowing not to say, get on with your life, Flora Bellingdon, fifteen years — yes, fifteen — after your husband has left you. Hanker no more for a man who's happily remarried with two children. I also knew the real reason Celia was coming with me. To stop me making a monumental fool of myself in the bosom of my ex-in-laws, which, trust me, I would only do if I was catastrophically drunk, and those days were over. Sort of. As we rose to the top of a hill and the countryside opened up tantalizingly around us before disappearing as we plunged once more into a valley, I recalled Celia's eyes, some weeks ago, huge and horrified in the studio we shared, when I'd told her where I was going this summer. She'd lowered her brush. Turned slowly from her easel to face me.

“Sorry . . . sorry, Flora. Run that by me again? You're going to paint Hugo's father, in Hugo's family pile, to add to the groaning collection of oils in the ancestral hall, when we all know—" She broke off, stunned. "Why in heaven’s name did they ask?"

"Because I'm the natural choice, surely?" I'd said defiantly. “They want to commission a portrait and – well, I'm a penniless portrait artist. I'm also Peter's mother. Of course it should be me. Imagine if they hadn't asked me, you'd be up in arms about that," I finished triumphantly, which was true. Celia would certainly have had something to say. Then again, she had something to say about most things.

"Yes, but they expected you to turn it down, don't you see?" she'd implored. “They expected you to say – ‘I’m incredibly touched, Belinda, but I've got masses of commissions this summer, why don't you try so-and-so, I hear he's terrific.’ I mean, sure, if you were neatly remarried, or at least attached . . . but this is supremely insensitive under the circumstances."

"Oh, they won't know that, will they?" I'd muttered. “They don't know how I feel about Hugo."

"Belinda does, you've seen to that."

Belinda, like Christina, had been on the receiving end of one or two of my more shameful, demented phone calls. But not for a good few years, as I'd told Celia.

"I know," she'd said quickly. "I just think they could quietly get someone local and you'd never know. Or even someone super famous like Nicky Philipps — they've got the dosh, and you wouldn't question that. You'd just think, ah yes, well, of course."