I’d say that creating a second family is a lot bigger betrayal than a quickie, or two. I feel as if I have been swept, by a current stronger than both of us, on to the moral high ground, where I intend to remain for as long as I can. I am determined not to lose the advantage of height in the difficult months that I know will follow this particular crisis, as I happen to know that the next crisis is coming fast on its heels.

And, so far as I’m aware, there is no moral equivalence between adultery (my crime) and turning my friend into my husband’s impregnee behind my back (my husband’s). So I am inspecting Ralph fiercely as the words, ‘What does she want from us?’ drop from my lips. Things can’t – so far as I can see, unless she wants Ralph to acknowledge paternity – get any worse.

But they do.

Ralph sputters to a halt.

‘What. Does. She. Want?’ I repeat, fuming at Ralph’s god-given ability to appear morally superior to me when he isn’t.

‘Well, darling, it’s not going to happen, of course, but she, erm, wanted me to…’ I stare him down. ‘… provide the child, Joe… with a sibling.’

The water dazzles my eyes. A bird sings loudly in the tree that is hung with clusters of the strange sexual fruit. I realize that I have been silent for a long time, motionless.

‘I’ll never forgive myself for not telling you about Clare,’ says Rose. In a graceful movement, she sits up, and looks across at me. ‘I just didn’t know what to do.’

She is very cute in her gingham bikini, so cute that I can quite see why Jesse Marlon fell for the famed Rose Musgrove charms, the talk of three counties, and why Virginie, I now learn, wanted a slice, too. She has a slender waist, hair cascading Bardot-like on to slim brown shoulders, lush breasts that lie like wholesome brown farm eggs in a tray in her balconette bikini top, and the most wonderful, finely etched ankles and feet.

‘I should bloody hope not,’ I reply, punishing her, and feeling slightly lumpen in my one-piece boy-cut costume, lying on my back so at least my hips are – if I suck in my strangely large tummy (about which, tactfully, no one has commented) – faintly prominent. ‘I can’t think why you let her confide in you. Did I tell you that she not only stole my house,’ I continue (glossing over the fact that it was the Fleming family London residence), ‘but my housekeeper, Fatima – Fatty – too?’ (glossing over the fact that Fatty, my cleaner, came reluctantly and by bus, no more than three times a week).