‘Any coffee going?’ J scratched his belly. ‘Have you seen my phone?’

He rooted through the piles of paperwork I’d stacked neatly last night, through the old newspapers full of articles I kept meaning to read and never got round to, forms for Alicia’s school trips and Effie and Fred’s dinner money, bank statements that needed to go to the accountants, my notebook full of scribblings for ideas that I needed to write up properly. Scribblings that were decreasing in number.

‘I need to call Liam. I’ve had a fucking blinding idea for Revolver. We’ve got to go all out on the VIP room. Marble, gold, the works. Seventies kitsch.’

I watched one pile slide dangerously to the right and bit my tongue.

‘Where the hell’s my phone? Did you move it again? I do keep saying just leave it.’

‘Oh, J, don’t mess it all up again,’ I muttered, but my beautiful symmetry was already descending towards the floor.

‘Don’t fuss, Rose.’ He found the phone in the pocket of his fleece. ‘McCready can tidy it. She loves it.’

Ruined.

‘Who’s she?’ Mrs McCready stomped back into the room, a beaming Fred beneath her arm like a small parcel. ‘The cat’s mother?’

‘Oh, McCready, you angel.’ James kissed her resoundingly on one thread-veined cheek. ‘You’re here to save us all, aren’t you, petal?’

I couldn’t help smiling. ‘I thought I was your petal?’

‘That’s right, Rosie Lee,’ my husband winked at me, ‘you are. My one and only petal. Bring the coffee to the studio, would you? I’ve got to get on.’

I caught McCready’s eye over his dark head. Obviously it was a good day.

‘Liam, that you? All right, sir?’ J winked at me again. ‘Listen, my head’s buzzing. I’ve had a fucking blinder of a plan. Think Joan Collins on a swing in The Stud, and forget all your troubles.’

McCready pursed colourless lips and released Fred from her grasp.

‘So, sir, get your arse …’ With a flurry of paper falling to the floor and a door slamming in his wake, J was gone. Troubles, I thought. The first I’d heard.

‘I’ll fetch him his coffee,’ McCready said, as I’d known she would. For all her disapproval, she adored James. As she left the room, Fred in her wake, the phone started to ring.

‘Thank you,’ I called after her, adding milk to my tea and looking for the handset. Before I found it, the answer-phone kicked in.

‘Pick up, Rosie, darling.’ My heart jolted at the familiar drawl. ‘We both know you’re there.’

I finally spotted the receiver, tangled in a pair of small carrot-stained dungarees in the washing basket.

A deep sigh into the machine. ‘There’s only so long you can avoid me. I need you. And,’ the voice dropped into a caress, ‘you know you need me, darling.’