‘Get her involved too,’ Meredith replied, making it sound as if this were the easiest thing in the world. ‘She probably understands all this social media stuff far better than we do. Héloise told me that’s how brides plan everything now. She’d be a huge asset. Do you think she’d want to?’

‘Well, it’s rather come out of the blue. I need to talk to Sophie, though. I’ll call her when I get back to Steph’s.’ Jo suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to say yes, to come and live in beautiful France. It felt like just the kind of adventure Sophie would recommend when her mother was feeling so down and depressed.

‘My God,’ Steph giggled. ‘The Meads Girls would be back together!’ She started to sing her own off-key version of ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’ at the top of her voice, with a suitable adjustment for gender.

‘Stephie,’ Meredith shook her head, smiling. ‘It doesn’t even scan!’

David looked irritably at his watch. It was after six and he’d just spent the last hour tidying up after the LeBrun children. Marcelline had phoned to say she had period pains – which seemed to be a perfectly acceptable excuse in France, where anything even vaguely connected with sex was held as sacred – so he’d ended up having to lay all the tables as well.

Then Monsieur LeBrun had suddenly appeared and announced that their son was better and they now wanted to stay an extra week to make up for the lost time.

He knew that Steph would make some excuse and refuse.

‘That will be absolutely fine,’ David had told him, smiling smugly. Serve her bloody well right. He heard the front door open just as the first guests were appearing.

‘For God’s sake, David,’ Steph greeted him, ‘aren’t the drinks out yet? What have you been doing all afternoon, and where the hell’s Marcelline?’

‘Off sick.’ David was too embarrassed to go into the specifics of Marcelline’s indisposition. He knew he’d get it wrong and either be accused of not being sympathetic enough, or too sympathetic; it was hard to predict which.

‘Did you get all that stuff I asked you to?’ Steph asked shortly.

‘Yes, Stephanie, I got every single thing on your extensive list, even though it took me about two hours.’ Meredith noted the tone of irritated weariness she had picked up the other day and realized she’d done nothing about her own little scheme to help.

‘Well, you didn’t have anything else to do, did you?’

‘Except find more diarrhoea medication for the junior LeBrun, or catch their bloody dog when it started chasing the deer belonging to our extremely touchy neighbour? By the way,’ he added, ‘they’ve asked if they can stay another week. I said yes, of course.’

He waited for the explosion, which duly came.