Thanks to Cordelia’s big brother and Alex’s new husband, Ruan Thorne’s celebrity boat tours, she knew that Blake’s house was a masterpiece of modernism, a great monolith of glass and steel, which opened out onto the Atlantic. She had never seen the front of it before though, which was much less showy, built from what looked like Cornish stone and floodlit in the dark December afternoon. A huge wooden door opened as she approached, and Sue faltered, seeing Blake there, in a white shirt, and white linen trousers, tied at the waist with a drawstring. She blinked. He wasn’t the first famous person she had ever met, after all last year she asked Meryl Streep for her contributions to the jumble sale, but he was the most handsome famous person she had ever met. He was also the most handsome famous person who she had sometimes imagined kissing that she had ever met. In fact he was the only one.

‘H—Hello there!’ Sue said, finding her usual confidence floundering a little.

‘Sue, thanks for dropping by. I’m so sorry it took me so long to come down. Can’t get the staff, know what I mean?’

‘Ah yes, those were the days,’ Sue said, trying her hardest not to look around in jaw-dropping awe as soon as she walked into the hallway of polished marble floors and high ceilings.

‘No seriously, I can’t get the staff. I think the whole town is involved in your pageant in some way or another. And I’m guessing that’s why you’re here – you want me to turn on some fairy lights or something? Maybe play God? It wouldn’t be the first time, you know. I got rave reviews last time!’

‘I am actually here to ask for your help. Um …’ For perhaps the first time in her adult life Sue discovered that the proverbial cat had got her tongue. This was so foolish. She was woman in her prime, in full possession of all of her faculties, and forty years old, not some silly blushing schoolgirl. Perhaps it was because she was so rarely in the presence of an attractive man that she’d forgotten how they could sometimes just make you feel … All bubbly in the knicker area.