‘Maybe that’s what I’m aiming to be. You no longer have to be rich, or brought up in some upper-middle-class home, to be acceptable. A cockney barrow boy or a shop girl are just as likely to be the toast of the town as a duchess. And although they may not talk or dress the way you do, my friends are artists and writers and people with something fresh to say. The world is changing, Mother. We’re a new generation with different values from yours, and we don’t have to hide behind a wall of bigotry. You can’t imagine how grateful I am for that.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Camilla. You belong in a certain level of society because you were fortunate enough to be born into it. You should be extremely grateful for that.’

‘Your rules about class and money and possessions will soon be history, thank God.’ Camilla applied a line of kohl around her eyes and pulled a knitted hat down over her hair. ‘In the meantime I’m off to the cinema.’

‘You’re only harming yourself with this childish attitude.’ Marina sighed. ‘Your reputation is the only thing you have, Camilla, and once you lose it you’ll never get it back. Your cockney barrow boys would be only too delighted to see people like us destroy ourselves. I can only hope you’ll grow out of all this nonsense, if we can be patient for long enough.’

When she was not in class, Camilla spent her time at plays and films, where she could sit for hours studying the expressions and gestures of the actors in whose steps she hoped to follow. She gorged herself on art and music of every kind, soaking up the diversity of London’s cultural offerings, trailing through museums, frequenting concert halls and cinemas. At night she danced in noisy clubs where she drank vodka and smoked, drifting through hazy hours of marijuana and strange, disconnected conversations in dingy basements. The city’s manic energy and sense of change swept through her, filling her with defiance, drawing her into a vortex of activity that lasted round the clock. But even in the midst of a crowd, where she was often the centre of attention, she remained an observer, an outsider in a frenzied world that did not really move her.