‘Stretching out in the sun.’ She lifts her face to the cloudy sky as if she can already feel the warmth on it. ‘It’s a surprise for Moss. It’s for our platinum wedding anniversary. Seventy years.’

Despite the fact I’ve had it up to here with surprises, it does sound intensely romantic.

‘Seventy years,’ I say, marvelling. Literally, a whole lifetime.

‘Don’t worry, dahlink,’ she says consolingly, ‘your time will come.’

‘You think so?’ The pure hope that sparks up in me when she says that!

Never one to miss an emotion, she lowers her voice. ‘I’m telling you as a friend, let him into your heart.’

I shoot a glance at David, who’s now talking to the partner of the bearded man, and they’re back on the subject of Pisces, allegedly the imaginative and dreamy signs of the zodiac. ‘Let him into my heart,’ I repeat. ‘I’m not sure what that means. Anyway, he might not want to come in. He might prefer to hang around on the doorstep.’

‘Okay, stop with making the jokes. That’s why you’re single. Men don’t like a joker.’

‘If that were true, women comics would all be single.’

Dinah purses her lips to show her disapproval of my facetiousness. ‘You have my forgiveness,’ she says, ‘only because I need your help. For this luxury hideaway holiday, I’m going to sell three or four of my Chanel suits.’

My heart lurches with nervous excitement. ‘You’re kidding!’ I whisper. ‘What’s Moss going to say? He’s not going to be happy about that.’

‘Of course he isn’t! It’s insufferably rude to giveaway gifts.’ She pats my face. ‘Don’t worry; he’ll be fine. I’m not giving away my favourites.’

Remembering Moss’s possessiveness over Dinah’s wardrobe, it’s not much of a consolation. ‘Talk it over with him first,’ I advise, seeing as I seem to be so good at giving advice these days. ‘He wasn’t very happy that I’d tried on your Grès gown and that’s putting it mildly.’

‘Exactly!’ Dinah says as if she’s scored a point. ‘If I ask him, he’ll say no.’

‘So don’t do it.’ I’m getting a strong sense of déjà vu. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt recently about surprises, it’s that they can go horribly wrong.

‘Don’t do what?’ David asks, coming into the conversation now that his customers have left with his largest size of light box.

‘Dinah wants to surprise Moss with a holiday for their wedding anniversary and to fund it she wants to sell her Chanel,’ I whisper.

His features soften in a way that makes him look like a kid watching a Disney film.

‘Dinah, your marriage,’ he says, ‘is so romantic that despite everything, it gives me faith in everlasting love.’