‘I recognise those two men over there,’ she murmured, shifting her chair so she wasn’t facing them. ‘One ordered a scarf from me today – didn’t catch his name but I’ve got his card and I know exactly what scarf he wants – and the other …’ She laughed. ‘Although you would never guess, he has recently run a half-marathon with his colleagues.’ She frowned. ‘Or maybe he was just in the photograph with the runners. It was in the local paper.’

‘So you don’t know these people in real life, you just recognise them with your superpowers?’

‘No, the first one I met.’ She found her handbag and burrowed about in it until she came up with a card. ‘Here you are! It’s him.’

Jago took the card and then at Helena. ‘Really?’

‘Yes. Do you know him?’

‘Of him. We’re in the same business only he’s a massive company and I’m a one-man band.’

‘You mean you couldn’t afford one of my scarves?’ Instantly she began planning the design for one she’d make as a present for him. She took another sip of her wine. It was delicious, and she was glad Jago had led them here. ‘How was Mum when you drove her home?’

‘She was her usual charming self but she did seem a bit twitchy. When I asked if she’d enjoyed the show she said it would have been better if she could have driven herself there and was annoyed she didn’t just change the date for her car being serviced.’

‘Oh!’ said Helena. ‘Martin always arranges for her car to be serviced. Since the divorce. Cars are a blue job, you know. Women can’t ring up a garage and make an appointment to have one serviced.’

‘Really?’

‘Mum indulges him because it’s the only thing he does that’s remotely helpful and she doesn’t want to undermine him.’

‘So, what’s all this colour-coded job thing?’

‘Cressida thinks it’s simpler for men if jobs have colours. Blue and pink. Cars are blue, doing the online grocery order is pink. Don’t get ideas of it going on between us. I prefer everything to be mauve.’

‘Which means?’

‘Whoever has time and thinks of it, does it.’ She paused. ‘It seems to work OK, doesn’t it?’

She looked at him, wondering how he felt about her, whether he felt anything beyond friendship. They – well, he – had come up with the idea of pretending to be an item because it suited them but supposing one of them, i.e. her, wanted to change? To stop pretending? Because she did want them to be a real couple, who touched, who slept together.