‘Let go, Mummy,’ she demands at the exact moment the band strike up, a handsome group of swaggering twenty-somethings, darlings of NME, The Hothouse, about to become huge. To my relief Alicia flashes through the fishnets and stilettos, the ripped Levi’s and the Prada dresses. Star is in a dress so ripped and tiny it’s like a teabag, black leather bondage boots up to her thighs, and the pop star Domino McFadden’s even wearing wet-look PVC, of course she is, and I allow myself a wry smile. Once I might have worn it myself, but not tonight. Not any more. Instead, for J’s sake, I chose a demure Chloe dress, grey wool, so very grown-up. Just like me these days. I’ve lost a tiny bit of weight through misery, but I am still curvier than I used to be. I am new Rose. Undesirable, it seems. Not the old Rose – the Rose who for a time was shameless in bed, full of confidence. I am Rose who has three children, whose body is marked irreparably by motherhood, who has lost the defiant confidence that came after Dalziel, the confidence that came despite the implosion of Society X, that has finally dissipated for ever. I touch my bruised face, now covered by make-up.

Alicia is by the stage now, Holly in her wake like a small tug – and Star is about to dance. She waits for the music to reach the climax, swaying gracefully. Below her, at the foot of the stairs, a boy stands, almost a man, and he is quite beautiful, with white-blond hair and dark skin, and he reminds me of someone. He reminds me of Dalziel, I realise with a sharp pain, he reminds me of the friend I loved so much and lost.

‘Mum-my,’ Effie puffs, and I come back to the present and I lower her. She slides to the ground and I watch her small figure stomp through the adult legs until she reaches her sister’s side and slips her small hand into Alicia’s slightly bigger one. I look for the boy again, but he has his back to me now; he’s talking to a couple of young women in matching backless dresses, who look at him rather adoringly and keep laughing silly tinkly laughs.

‘Oh, Charlie,’ they keep saying, ‘you are funny.’

I think of myself aged eighteen and I shiver.