But Ralph did agree to establish a ‘top table’, which was something. ‘No way am I sitting next to Biddy Pike, she reminds me of Princess Anne; definitely not Gwenda, thanks, she only talks about horses. And please, please not the gloomy witch woman you go on about who lives in the yurt.’

‘But Biddy’s got a lovely seat,’ I say, and Ralph looks at me with an odd expression, as if I’ve gone either mad or native, ‘and Sophy’s not coming because she has to look after Noah or she has a composting workshop or something, but Spike is, her son, who is a very good friend of Mirabel’s at Acland’s, so please be civil.’

‘And as it’s my birthday I would really be grateful,’ he continues, ‘if there was a buffer zone between me and Gloria Saville. I had her on the train for two hours, talking about her polytunnels. Sorry, darling. But she’s a founder member of Densa.’

‘What about Suki Rous?’ I try, naming the pregnant heiress, one half of the Golden Couple, married to the Tory law partner, who is trying to secure a local safe seat. Ralph looks stricken even at the prospect of prolonged interaction with Suki, who I thought was about as perfect a specimen of womanhood as I or anyone else could bring to the party.

Mirabel is looking at us during all this with curled lip. ‘I don’t understand,’ she says. ‘All these people are your friends, and you’ve invited them to Daddy’s party, so why are you saying horrible things about them like you don’t want to sit next to them, like, behind their backs? You’re both so mean.’

‘I promise you’ll understand when you’re older,’ I say to Mirabel. ‘And you’ve got to sit next to Cath Cobb,’ I say to Ralph. ‘They’ve had us three times and we’ve only had them once.’ (At a riotous dinner where the table collapsed after the first course and, worse, there weren’t enough plates to go around, and so I told everyone that they had to eat their fish pie off the same plates they’d eaten Parma ham and melon. The next day, I had an express delivery from the Conran Shop in London of twelve large white porcelain dinner plates accompanied by a note from Granville saying, ‘Next time, darling Mimi, remember that I don’t eat pig or shellfish, let alone off the same plate, but never mind, you domestic goddess you – it was the best dinner party I’ve been to in ages.’)

‘That’s fine,’ says Ralph, looking more cheerful as he heads off to write his piece under Gordon Brown’s byline. ‘As I think Cyril Connolly once said of someone or other, the Cobbs are definitely more dined against than dining.’