I wasn’t given any options because Granville and Sir Michael insisted, without brooking opposition, that I should be mede-vacked out to the Caribbean, at Ralph’s expense, to stay at Perdition. I had been privately pondering whether to ring Fenella, to see whether I could go after all to Somerset and review the spelt spa, have some time solo, and feel sorry for myself while being dermabrased with grains in the Mendips. ‘There’s nothing I like more than a lovely decadent holiday somewhere hot that I’m not paying for, trust me,’ I said. I’ve already decided that the title of my autobiography, if I ever write it, would be Born Freebie. ‘But… what about Ralph?’

But Ralph, it turned out, was already on board, as were Rose and Pierre. Rose would not dream of not coming too, and said that she had put some money by for a rainy day, and Clare Sturgis turning up like that and me fainting at Ralph’s fortieth definitely counted as a rainy day.

‘Much as I loathe holidays, strange beds, and air travel, sunny weather and lying around reading novels, I recognized it would be entirely disobliging of me to refuse their embarrassingly generous offer of Michael’s gracious colonial home,’ Ralph had apparently said, to Granville, in Rose’s hearing. ‘So I am, this once, prepared to make an exception.’

That was Ralph’s way of acknowledging publicly, I suppose, that he had hurt me.

Anyway, as Rose and I lounge poolside, Ralph and Pierre are on the links, enjoying displacement activities and a holiday from The Topic.

The Topic. The whole debacle at the Venetian picnic.

Which was not Colin being caught in flagrante with Serena by the Revd Wyldbore-Smith, who tripped over the couple coupling in the gents’ at Home Farm. Which must, I thought, be a first for our downstairs loo, into which Colin and Serena had ducked, thinking they would be safe because there were smart Portaloos, with real ceramic sinks and everything – they were unbelievably smart, much smarter than our own facilities in the house, to be quite frank.

No, the real debacle concerned me and Ralph. And Clare.

And, of course, Joe.

When I came round from my faint, I found the children’s faces peering down at me, anxiously.

‘Mum, now you’ve finally woken up, can we have some of Dad’s birthday cake?’ asked Posy.

Ralph was nowhere to be seen.

He had gone to ‘deal’ with the ‘Clare situation’, and returned grim-faced just as the guests were finally leaving. Ralph and I did not stay to say goodbye to our guests, but fled in the Subaru.