And yet. He was the one who hadn’t told her the truth about their financial difficulties – hadn’t trusted her with the truth, in her own words.

Sitting here, repeating his own name to try and grasp onto his identity, just made him realize one thing: he missed her. He missed the ordinariness of their days. When Suzi had come onto his horizon he had persuaded himself he deserved something more. Excitement. Passion. A bigger canvas.

But in a funny way, the canvas had turned out to be smaller.

It was as though Suzi had Googled What makes men happy? and was desperate to fulfil it: as much as possible of food, sport, sex. And yet the only time he’d seen her looking genuinely content was sitting, as she was now, with a moodboard, creating romantic room sets for the château.

Suzi, he’d discovered, didn’t want to live in the real world. And Steph did. But what the hell he was going to do about this discovery, he had no fucking idea.

‘Oh God,’ groaned Jo. ‘Ronnie’s asking if she can come back and stay in the château for a couple of days to line up some florists.’

‘But she only went home to Basingstoke a couple of weeks ago!’ protested Sophie.

‘Can’t she do it online like everyone else?’ Meredith demanded. ‘And why not stay with her sister?’

‘She wants to drink in the atmosphere of the venue so that she can get the mood of the flowers right,’ giggled Jo.

‘And drink in quite a lot of our wine at the same time! Oh my God: Ronnie and Suzi here at the same time.’ Meredith shook her head. ‘I think I might book a flight to Singapore. It’s quieter there.’

‘At least Steph seems more cheerful,’ said Jo.

‘Yes. That’s step one. But how the hell do you pull off step two?’ shrugged Meredith.

‘Remind me of step two.’

‘Getting Steph and David back together.’

Philippe stood in the field adjoining the château with the event organizer hired by the mayor, trying to work out how to fit thirty stands into the available space.

‘Not possible,’ asserted the organizer. ‘You will have to expand into the next field, plus you may have some late applications. You’d be surprised how often that happens. Now, where are you going to put the WCs?’

Philippe was beginning to grasp the scale of the organization needed for an event like this. ‘Can’t people just use the facilities in the car park?’ he enquired.

‘Not for this many. You’ll have to hire portable toilets. Next to the entrance booth would be best.’

‘Do we need an entrance booth?’ asked Philippe.

‘You have to stop people just wandering in without paying. How do you see that working, by the way?’