She saw Carmel slip out of the large living room, and she followed her up the staircase and across the landing into the master bedroom. She could see how upset Carmel really was, and she couldn’t blame her. It had to be a work situation of some description, but surely, on a night such as this, work could take a back seat?

She tapped gently on the bedroom door and then, without waiting for an answer, she slipped inside, closing the door quietly behind her. Carmel was sitting on a king-size bed and, for the first time ever, Josephine saw her with her guard down. She was wiping her eyes with a tissue, and she looked very fragile, very vulnerable. Josephine had never realised how thin Carmel actually was. Looking at her now, she seemed to have disappeared into her clothes. It was awful. She seemed older, defeated somehow. Her lovely face, always so perfectly made-up, and always with her trademark smile, looked haunted. It was a real eye-opener for Josephine.

Josephine went to her without even thinking about it and, putting her arm around the woman’s shoulders, she hugged her gently, aware that Carmel needed comforting, needed someone to share her burden.

‘Are you OK, Carmel?’

Carmel Costello looked around her sadly. The room was beautiful, it was something most women could only dream of. She had walked into this room once and felt that she had finally got it all, had finally made it. Yet it meant nothing to her now, at this moment in her life. It was as if the house, the cars, the lifestyle she craved were nothing more than an illusion because, until tonight, she had never felt such acute loneliness. Patrick had disappeared and left her alone at his own party, and that had hurt her more than she had thought possible.

Oh, everyone was enjoying themselves and they would assume that Patrick, being Patrick, had important business to attend to; it wasn’t in any way a slur on her. But it had hurt. Being left alone for so long and putting on a brave face was difficult when all she really wanted to do was stab him through the heart. She had not realised how much she had wanted him to be beside her, how much that would have meant to her.

It was nice being comforted by young Josephine. She believed the girl meant well and wouldn’t broadcast every word spoken by her to the nation. She could trust her, she felt that and, for the first time in years, she let herself say what she really meant – she needed to get it off her chest.

‘I’ll be all right in a minute, Josephine. It’s just sometimes I could kill Patrick. He’s left me out there on my own for hours. It’s our night – he could at least remember that. I feel such a fucking fool.’