When it’s your home, the novelty quickly wears off. It’s so acrid that it clogs my throat. I get out the Febreze and spray it liberally, then I light a Jo Malone candle and call Mick for sympathy.

Mick is concerned and also intensely practical, and that’s one of the things I like about him. He listens to my tale of woe and then he asks, in his warm, deep voice, ‘Is the electricity still on?’

I switch on the light cautiously with my elbow. ‘Yes.’

‘Good. You want to hire a dehumidifier to dry the place out,’ he suggests. ‘Make sure you wipe down the walls to get rid of the soot and take the clothes to the dry cleaners so that you can decide afterwards what’s salvageable.’

I hold the phone tight against my face and look around at the ruined room, which has become a travesty of itself. ‘Okay,’ I say with a wobble in my voice.

‘Fern,’ he says gently, ‘you’re all right. That’s the main thing.’

I nod, even though he can’t see me.

‘Do you want to stay at my place? My neighbour has a key.’

For a moment, escaping to his house in Harpenden seems a wonderful option. But I need to be here to get things sorted. ‘When are you coming home?’ I ask.

His voice moves away from the mouthpiece. ‘When are we back, mate? The tenth?’ He says in my ear, ‘The tenth. Not long.’

‘It’s two weeks too long for me. I miss you,’ I say, desperately hoping he’ll tell me he’ll come back earlier.

He hasn’t seen this needy side of me before. ‘Yeah,’ is his hesitant reply.

After the call I go into the bathroom and lock myself away to cry in private, devastated about my ruined dresses. I’m feeling lost and totally alone.

As I sit on the loo, absorbing my tears with tissues, I hear an apologetic cough above my head and glance up. Argh! I pat my heart.

‘Fern?’ Lucy’s looking down at me through the hole that has burnt through her floor and my ceiling.

‘What?’ I say tearfully.

‘About this hole,’ she says. ‘Look, I’m going to put a sheepskin rug over it, okay?’

That’s the problem with actors. It’s all about the illusion. ‘Okay. Now, could you just please leave me be,’ I plead bleakly.

‘Sorry,’ she says and drags the rug into place. The dust captures the light as it floats lazily down.

KIM

Meeting Fern Banks on our secret assignation in Carluccio’s was the riskiest, most exciting thing that I’ve done in years. Life was thrilling again! The secrecy! The lies I had to tell Enid!

And the shame of telling them!