Marianne plumped up the cushions on the Chesterfield. I could have done without this dilemma at my time of life! But Simon has brought to this time of your life something you’d thought gone forever.

‘You can’t have the ha’penny and the bun, Marianne,’ Sarah Sandberg’s voice echoed in her head from the past. ‘Nobody can.’

Nor were the best things in life necessarily free. In Marianne’s experience there was a price to pay for everything. Was she prepared to pay the price of marrying a man she loved?

That evening she found that Laura had taken the matter of his introduction to the family into her own hands.

‘I got a call from your cousin – the one who’s a photographer,’ Simon said when he dropped in for a drink earlier than Marianne had expected him. ‘She said we’re invited to her kid’s bonfire party. But you already know, no doubt. I guess she called me too to be polite, since I haven’t yet been to her home.’

‘I haven’t encouraged my family to clasp you to its bosom, Simon.’

‘Or me to clasp it to mine. If you think I didn’t know that, you must take me for a fool, Marianne. I seem to recall suggesting more than once that we invite your relatives for Sunday brunch to my place, or yours. You never did anything about it, though, and I was aware that wasn’t because you couldn’t be bothered scrambling eggs for a crowd and dishing out bagels with cream cheese and lox.’

Simon smiled dryly. ‘Who are you ashamed of? Me, or them?’

‘Neither! And if you’re going to be snide about this, you can go to the bloody bonfire on your own.’

‘I don’t mind missing out on the bonfire. What I do mind is that I haven’t yet met your son and his wife.’

‘They’re no longer together.’

‘Since when? Don’t bother telling me. I’m not curious, Marianne. Just shocked that a relationship I thought the closest I’d known could exclude your letting me in on something as distressing for you as what I’ve just – by chance – learned. Maybe I am the fool you think me.’

Marianne watched him drink the Scotch she had poured for him and get himself another.

‘Is this to be the first time I see you get drunk?’

Simon eyed her contemplatively and made no reply.

She sipped some of her sherry and put down the glass. ‘The truth is, Simon, that I wanted to keep you to myself. Once you become part of my family scene—’

‘The honeymoon we haven’t yet had would be over – is that what you mean?’ he cut in.

‘Sort of, though I have to say that was a cock-eyed way of putting it.’