‘There’s just one problem,’ said Monica, looking at Laura. ‘You’ll probably have to offer Dermot your body again to get him to do it.’

Laura’s insides seemed to crumple away.

‘I mean . . .’ Monica hastened to make amends. ‘I was talking in that way when you don’t really mean it literally—’

Before Grant started asking awkward questions, Laura rushed in to cover her tracks. ‘You were speaking metaphorically,’ she said. ‘That’s what you meant. Me offering to sleep with Dermot is a metaphor for – well, saying I’d do anything to make him come to the festival. Because obviously, I wouldn’t really offer to sleep with him, would I?’ Fairly sure she’d protested far too much to uphold her status as a lady, Laura looked helplessly at Monica.

‘No, of course you wouldn’t,’ Monica confirmed. ‘No one would.’ She laughed, sounding a bit artificial. ‘Let’s have another round!’

‘Oh do let’s,’ said Laura. ‘I’ll pay.’ She had jumped off her bar stool, twenty-pound note waving, before she realised she was already at the bar and could order from where she had been sitting. She could feel Grant’s eyes on her and knew there’d have to be explanations on the way home. Had she enough money, she asked herself, to get so drunk she wouldn’t be able to talk? But look where that had got her last time. No, she would just have to bluff her way through. Grant would never believe she actually had agreed to sleep with Dermot to get him to come to the festival. It was so out of character. Phew!

Fortunately for Laura’s peace of mind, the subject changed and they went on to have a great night out. Grant and Monica got on as well as Laura had known they would and Monica had agreed to employ Grant – for free of course – as her second-in-command at the festival. He was delighted.

And suddenly it was midnight and time to go home.

They were barely in the car before Grant piped up, ‘You didn’t really offer Dermot Thing your body to get him to come to the festival, did you?’ Grant was now as proprietorial about the festival as Monica and Laura were.

‘Oh come on, Grant!’ Laura felt that indignation was her best defence. She might have known nothing would get past him. ‘Would I do a thing like that? How long have you known me?’

Grant drove in silence for a worryingly long time. ‘No, I suppose not. In some ways you are a bit of a professional virgin.’