I take a deep breath. This is my moment. ‘I’m planning to trek the Inca Trail,’ I announce. My sister’s jaw hits the table. Just like my husband’s did. I soldier on, regardless. ‘In aid of Dream Days. I need to raise two thousand pounds by September.’ I don’t mention the measly fifteen pounds I’ve cajoled out of my neighbours.

When she has recovered from the shock of her useless sister doing something useful, Chelsea claps her hands together in approval which makes me glow. ‘Oh, Annie. That’s wonderful!’

Strike while the iron’s hot. I whip out my form. ‘I was hoping that you might sponsor me.’

Behind our sister’s back, Lauren winks.

‘Of course. Of course.’ Chelsea reaches into the depths of the voluminous handbag that’s probably set her back over a thousand pounds. She pulls out a chequebook. Coutts account.

I sit feeling embarrassed as she fills in the cheque in her painstakingly immaculate script with her Mont Blanc pen. She won prizes for that writing at school. Lauren and I would make great GPs on the writing front. Chelsea signs with a flourish. It’s only then that I notice that her nail varnish is chipped, her manicure long overdue. And that’s not like my sister at all. Perhaps she’s not had time with the party and moving back into her house in Woburn.

Then, folding the cheque, my sister hands it over. I take it gratefully.

‘Thank you, Chelsea.’ I feel quite teary. Peru, here I come! ‘Thank you for helping make my dream come true.’

Lauren, behind Chelsea’s back, sticks her finger down her throat and makes vomity mimes at me.

‘Nonsense,’ my sister says with a tinkling laugh. ‘It’s the very least I could do.’

‘Let me get more coffee,’ I say. ‘My treat.’

So I scuttle up to the counter again.

As we sip our second cups, Chelsea tells us all about our niece and nephew. ‘Their performing arts school has a performance on Saturday afternoon. You’d both be most welcome.’

We nod our heads enthusiastically, knowing that Chelsea will forget to tell us when and where, and that we probably wouldn’t go anyway. I wish our children had been closer in ages, then perhaps they’d be closer as cousins. When Ellen and Bobby were young, Chelsea was jetting off all round the world and rarely saw them. Now I try to be a dedicated aunty when the children are in the country, but I always feel that I’m being looked down on by Chelsea’s highfalutin friends when I turn up to their concerts or parties.