‘I will,’ I promise. ‘I’m so sorry, Lauren.’ Misery is raining down on me. ‘And I thought we were going to have such fun tonight.’

‘You thought you’d be snogging Lover Boy under the swaying palms,’ she huffs.

It’s better to say nothing.

On cue, BC appears. ‘Ladies, ladies,’ he says, rubbing his hands. ‘You look fab-u-lous!’

We don’t.

‘You’re needed in the main room,’ he continues. ‘Chop, chop.’

Lauren and I shuffle towards the door. ‘I’d like to bloody well chop, chop him,’ my sister mutters darkly.

I want to cry. And when I find that we can barely squeeze through the doors, I want to cry more. Lauren pushes while I pull and then, like a cork out of a bottle, we both shoot out.

The boat is already in the middle of the Thames and, even with a slight sway, it’s hard to stay upright in these damn suits. We shuffle into the palm-treed paradise, both grumbling in a manner that’s probably not fitting for a pineapple – which is generally, I would assume, considered an inoffensive fruit.

The steel band are in full swing and there’s a great party atmosphere in the air. Across the room I can see two bananas, a cherry and a lime. We’re clearly supposed to be the ingredients of the drink. I wonder if they feel as depressed as we do. But then perhaps they realised that they were coming here to be large fruit and not on an illicit date.

The fit waiters and sexy ladies move round the room offering canapés. Oh, why couldn’t we have had skimpy costumes! Already the outfit is chafing at my neck and I’m bathed in sweat inside it. We don’t seem to have a particular role – other than to be jolly – so we move round, smiling at the guests through gritted teeth and trying to act like tropical fruit.

‘I’m sure they could have managed without the pineapples,’ Lauren complains.

‘Customer has ordered pineapples,’ I say tightly. ‘Customer gets pineapples.’ But I have to agree with her. We just seem to be getting in the way, barging and barrelling through the crowd of partygoers. I can only thank the Lord that the customer hadn’t ordered dancing pineapples.

‘I’m sure this must be against my human rights,’ Lauren whines, and she grabs a shot of Totally Tropical from a passing hunk in a Hawaiian shirt and downs it. ‘Pineapple or not,’ my sister growls, ‘I plan on getting slaughtered.’

‘Please don’t tell Greg about this,’ I plead. ‘I’d never live it down.’

‘Your secret’s safe with me.’

‘I’ll never tell Chelsea either, if you won’t.’

‘Good plan,’ she agrees. ‘If we never speak about this again in our entire lifetime, then we can pretend that it never really happened.’

‘Can I gasp “pineapple” on my deathbed?’ I want to know.