‘How was the dress?’ Fran’s voice was that of the eternal optimist. ‘OK with the corset, was it?’

Maddy pulled a face. ‘No. It wouldn’t have been OK with steel girders. The basque helped a lot – but I still looked like a lumpy pillow.’

‘Pity.’ Fran giggled. ‘It always has the desired effect on Richard.’

‘That’s probably because I’m two sizes larger than you – or because Richard is turned on by lumpy pillows. Thanks for trying, Fran, but it looks like it’ll have to be the black skirt again – if I can find a top.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe I’ll give the party a miss.’

‘Oh no.’ Fran became school-marmish. ‘Maddy Beckett, you are not a quitter. You’ll shimmy in there tonight – as we planned – and hit Peter right between the eyes.’

‘My chest’ll probably do that,’ Maddy said. ‘Always supposing that the thighs don’t get him first.’

‘Good girl. A man likes a sense of humour, although why you’re attempting to waste it on Peter, God only knows. Especially after the way he –’

‘Fran.’ The word was heavy with dire threat.

‘OK. OK. You loved him – you still love him.’

‘No I don’t,’ Maddy protested. ‘I want to prove that I’ve survived and prospered without him. That there is life in Milton St John without Peter Knightley. And life in Maddy Beckett … It’s just that if he’s got Stacey in tow I’ll feel like a beached whale.’

‘Which, as I recall, was what he likened you to.’ Fran’s voice dripped ice. ‘The bastard.’

‘Well, I am a bit overweight.’

‘Nonsense,’ Fran said briskly. ‘You’re curvy and pretty and sexy. Peter Knightley was a prat.’

‘People always say hurtful things at the end of a relationship.’ Maddy was beginning to shiver inside the basque. She really must remember to ask someone to look at the boiler. It slept soundly all day, conserving its energy for sporadic bursts of tropical heat at about three in the morning. ‘I’m sure I was just as unpleasant. Anyway, it’s all history. I’ll drop your things off tomorrow on my way to work.’

‘Goody.’ Fran’s voice was smiling again. ‘I’ll get the kids out of the way and the kettle on – and open a new packet of chocolate fingers. I shall want to hear every detail, mind. All of it. And Maddy?’

‘Yes?’

‘Borrow a top from Suzy. That white one she wore to the Cat and Fiddle last week should render Peter speechless.’

‘Brilliant! Fran, I love you!’

A toe-amputating draught was screaming under the front door as Maddy replaced the receiver. Having had to become energy conscious since the last heating bill, she tugged at the mat which had got caught between the door frame and the step, but it held fast. Irritably, she opened the front door, kicked the mat back into place, and smiled at Mr Pugh from the Village Stores who was wobbling past on his bicycle. She was closing the door when Suzy came tearing up the path.