Suzy wandered into the bedroom eating a pork pie as Maddy applied haphazard blusher. ‘What shall I do with my hair?’

‘Put it up.’ Suzy perched on the bed. ‘It sort of tightens your face.’

‘Cheers.’ Maddy wrenched her abundant auburn curls on top of her head and anchored them with several clips. ‘So? How do I look?’

‘Surprised.’ Suzy slid from the bed in search of more food. ‘No, really Mad, you look super. Very pretty. Everyone will fancy you rotten. Oh, and guess what I heard today? Someone has bought Peapods at last.’

Not Peter, Maddy thought in panic. She had only just got used to the idea that Peter was back in Milton St John. She really couldn’t cope with him living in the massive house just across the road.

‘Who?’ She tugged on her black suede boots.

‘Oh, some foreign geezer. Well. Welsh, or something. He’s going to use it as a stables again. He’s been training flat horses somewhere or other and he wants to move on to a mixed yard. I think his name’s Dermot – Dermot MacAndrew.’

‘That is neither foreign nor Welsh.’ Maddy applied scarlet lipstick and wished she had time for matching nail varnish. ‘It sounds like a fairly good Celtic cocktail. Still, it will be nice to have Peapods running as a stables again – the health farm was a disaster.’

‘Yeah.’ Suzy poked her head round the door. ‘Especially when it employed people like Stacey …’ She managed to duck the lipstick as Maddy lobbed it towards the doorway. ‘And take the car tonight, Mad. Don’t rely on Pete giving you a lift home. It looks so tacky to be hanging around hopefully at the end.’

‘Won’t you need it?’

‘Nah. I’m walking down to the pub with Jason and Oily. It’s karaoke tonight.’

‘OK. Fine.’ Maddy scooped up the car keys from the dressing table. ‘I’m off. Wish me luck.’

‘I’ll wish you whatever you wish yourself.’ Suzy looked at her sister fondly. ‘Just don’t go breaking your heart – again.’

But of course, she hadn’t, Maddy thought, as she drove towards the white curve that passed as a main road in Milton St John. Broken her heart, that is. Peter had. Peter with his golden hair and his golden skin and his honeyed voice. Peter Knightley, who had left her fifteen months, three weeks, and two days ago – not that she was counting – for Stacey the bimbo stick-insect. And he hadn’t even told her. He’d just gone – and written a letter two weeks later.

She supposed Fran and Suzy were right to be anguished about his equally abrupt return, but then they hadn’t known him like she had. It had taken Maddy only moments to fall in love with Peter, to fall in love for the first time in her life. It had been an intense and all-consuming passion. For nearly four years Peter Knightley had been her life. More important than her work, more important than Suzy or her parents, more important, God help her, than her friends. When Peter had ended their relationship and left Milton St John he had not only taken her heart, he had practically taken her entire existence. That was why it was vital that she should make a survival statement tonight.