‘Why don’t you wait until the end of the show?’ said Helena. ‘If it’s still there – and not everyone wants a yellow handbag – you could probably get a bargain.’ She felt obliged to help her friend save money.

‘Will you negotiate for me?’ asked Amy.

Helena laughed. ‘Of course!’

‘You’ll be best friends with the maker by then,’ said Amy.

The public were due to arrive in half an hour and everyone was set up and waiting. Helena had tried a few tentative smiles at her fellow artisans but hadn’t got a lot of response. Then she decided to bring out her secret weapon: her mother’s well-filled Tupperware boxes.

‘I know it’s a bit early,’ Helena said to the creator of the yellow handbag, ‘but would you like a snack?’

The woman, who had deep red hair cut in a very elegant curly bob, looked in the box Helena was holding. ‘Blessed be the day when we can have a cheese straw for breakfast. Thank you!’

Everyone Helena offered snacks to was equally grateful. ‘We none of us had time for breakfast,’ said one, ‘so a sausage roll is bliss!’

‘I’ll do a coffee run when they’re open,’ said a third, having had two cheese straws and a vol-au-vent. ‘So sensible to bring food!’

‘It’s my mother,’ Helena explained. ‘She hardly lets me leave the house without a food parcel – certainly not her house anyway. She’s a feeder.’

‘I love her already,’ said the handbag maker, whose name was Venetia.

‘She’s coming so you’ll be able to tell her,’ said Helena, relaxed and happy now.

A slight rumble of conversation was heard. ‘Oh! To your places, it’s show time!’ This was said by a wonderfully camp jeweller whose pieces made even Helena’s abstemious heart beat faster. He was as kind as he was camp and had made Helena feel extremely welcome.

Helena greeted her first potential customer, hoping she didn’t have flaky pastry down her front. She had dressed up for this occasion, put on make-up and tonged her hair into fat curls that fell over her shoulder: she didn’t want the effect spoiled by a moment of carelessness.

She and Amy had made her stall look great. The loom, which was already threaded with the beginnings of a scarf on it, was now assembled. It was the centrepiece, and all around hung her creations. She put the big mohair blankets destined for World of Wool at the back. They were monochrome but the shades were vibrant, bright yet subtle, and made a very colourful background to her more subtle and vastly more expensive silk scarves.