‘You’re sick,’ Giles said with disgust. ‘I was wrong to come here. But for the record, yes, I would like him to be with me. I’d be the happiest human being alive if I could look after him for the rest of my life. But it’s futile trying to explain any of this to you. Goodnight.’ He strode to the door and let himself out before Camilla had time to get up from the sofa.

She finished her drink. In the bedroom she opened the drawer of her dressing table and took out a photograph of her parents. They gazed back at her, smiling, their arms around each other. Such a perfect couple. So charming and witty and sophisticated, everyone said, and so well matched. Had they really loved one another in some odd, twisted form? What was it that had kept them together through the years? As she asked herself this question, Camilla realised that she herself had no experience of unconditional love. With a sigh of frustration she put back the picture. It was no use fretting about the past. She picked up her coat and umbrella and set off to visit her mother.

Dinner was slow and the talk sporadic as Marina struggled to eat tiny portions of food. She watched television for a while, wrapped in a rug on the sofa, her fingers curled around George’s hand, her head on his shoulder. When the nurse arrived and put her to bed, Camilla left her father alone in front of the television. He looked up as she went into the hall, and raised a hand in sad farewell. She headed for the liveliest nightclub she knew. Edward was at an official dinner of some kind, and she did not want to be alone. There was an impatient mob outside the entrance, but the doorman spotted her and swept her past the queue, into the throbbing, booming mêlée of people like herself, who were bent on oblivion. Tom Bartlett waved from a table on the edge of the dance floor.

‘We’re celebrating,’ he said as she joined him at his table. ‘The contract has been tied up for the cosmetics deal. Perfumes first, and then their new line of potions for the face. So let’s hope Edward goes to work on you soon.’

‘I can’t do that while Mother’s still here,’ she said. ‘You know that.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘The Frogs are prepared to wait. This new line of expensive rubbish isn’t ready yet anyway.’ He ordered champagne and sat back with a broad smile of satisfaction on his face. ‘I think we should fix up a dinner party for them, the Frogs, I mean. Not a huge mob, better something intimate. Let’s pick about twenty people who’ve been involved in your career from the beginning. We could take a private room at Annabel’s. Civilised and exclusive.’