‘I’m not at all suicidal.’ I was flushing violently now. ‘It’s just an idea for a story.’

James chucked it down on the side. ‘Don’t give up the day job,’ he said with malice. ‘Oh, that’s right, you don’t have one any more.’

‘Come on, mate,’ Liam muttered. Star seemed oblivious, thank God.

‘James!’ I mumbled. ‘Please, don’t.’

As quickly as he switched, he switched back again.

‘I’m only teasing, darling,’ he said, stroking my face. His eyes were black with something. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean it. Come on, guys.’

‘You’re gorgeous, babe.’ Liam squeezed my hand as he left the room. ‘Ignore him. He doesn’t know he’s born.’

‘I like your house,’ I heard Star saying as they disappeared in James’s wake, off to the studio built in the old garage. ‘Is it real?’

As the door shut on them, I opened the biscuit tin and crammed two Jaffa Cakes down in defiance before sharing the rest with my delighted children. I wasn’t gorgeous any more, if I ever had been. I knew that.

‘Right, you lot. Bed.’

We’d moved from London just after I’d had the twins. I’d been in a stupor of sleep deprivation and cracked nipples, and possibly undiagnosed post-natal depression, worrying about Alicia and whether she felt pushed out, worrying that I didn’t have enough time or love to split fairly between three children. I did have enough love, it turned out – more than enough – but I didn’t have enough time. That had become clear quite quickly.

My mother had come to stay for the first month, unpacking boxes, heating bottles and washing an endless rotation of small babygros. My father watched the golf; sometimes I slumped beside him on the sofa, wondering how a woman who’d once partied for England, ridden in army helicopters above battlegrounds and regularly flown into places like war-torn Sarajevo for work could be so utterly pole-axed by two tiny babies and a boisterous three-year-old. Occasionally I also wondered what the hell I was doing in the middle of the Cotswold countryside, pretty but reminiscent of the rural life that I’d left behind in the Peak District as a teenager – and far too near Oxford for my liking. But I was victim of James’s whim after he’d shot a music video at Blenheim Palace and fallen in love with the place – apparently. Worried about the nightmares and the depression, I’d let myself be roller-coastered by his enthusiasm.