‘It’s OK, I’m not driving,’ said Monica. ‘We’ve got a driver. We’re picking up Seamus on the way. It’s such a shame he’s not staying at Somerby.’

‘Somerby is filled to the gunwales,’ said Laura. ‘Some authors have had to stay in bed and breakfasts.’ She paused as a happy thought occurred to her. ‘You could go and stay with him, if you want.’

Monica shook her head. ‘No. I need to be on-hand really, for the music festival stuff.’

Laura sighed, contrite. ‘I’m sorry, Mon, I keep forgetting about that side of things. How’s it going? Did you tell Ironstone? Will they be there tonight?’

‘Some of them, definitely, but it’s a sell-out. Seamus is bricking it.’

‘We have got the CD fall back position if he’s that scared.’

‘No! Dermot has vetoed that, remember.’

‘Come on, Mon, never mind all that, do you want a glass of wine first, or a shower?’

‘Both of course! Haven’t you heard of multi-tasking?’

Grant and Monica both insisted that Laura came early with them, not trusting her turn up unless they took her to the event by force.

‘It is a shame we couldn’t organise the pub to host this event,’ said Monica.

‘Yes, but apparently it couldn’t fit in nearly enough people so they moved it to Fenella’s cinema,’ said Laura.

‘Fenella’s cinema?’ said Grant.

‘Not her personal cinema. She loves the building and wanted it used for everything.’ Laura paused. ‘It’s also the biggest venue around. It’s where Monica did her gig, remember?’

‘Oh. I thought it was just a theatre.’

‘Poor Seamus! He’s going to be so nervous!’ said Monica interrupting. ‘He’d have been much happier in a pub.’

Monica sat in the front next to the driver on the way to pick up Seamus. Grant and Laura sat in the back, squashing up when Seamus got in. Laura was also feeling nervous. She so wanted it to go well, for Seamus’s sake, and, of course, for Dermot.

Sarah had asked her if she should photocopy the pages of the book and enlarge them for Dermot to read from. They had discussed it and decided it could do no harm, but Laura said that laminating them wasn’t a good idea. Apart from anything else, if he dropped the pages they would skid all over the place. Laura had the sheets; Dermot had the books.

‘It’s like members of the cabinet not travelling on the same flights in case there’s a plane crash,’ Sarah had said solemnly. ‘There’s a back-up position.’

Laura wasn’t sure if being made to laugh was helpful or not. It did relieve a bit of tension, but now she was worrying about Dermot’s driver, a very steady ex-policeman called Reg, getting into an accident on the way to the venue.