We are all crammed into the snug Farmers’ Bar, sitting behind the important notice that had been pinned to the door saying ‘Private Meeting’. I have ordered a glass of goody-two-shoes mineral water, and am sitting next to Cath, trying to look like a respectable mother, jam-maker and hamper-purveyor (rather than scarlet woman, village hussy or stealer of other women’s husbands) and am smiling defiantly at a couple of tutting county matrons, their hair curled into the permanent waves of Hokusai paintings. I have learned from experience that the more ashamed one appears, the more one says sorry, the horrider people are, whereas if I do my walk of shame with head held high, this penitential part passes much more quickly.

As it’s 6 p.m., Cath glances at a watch on her slim wrist. In one and a half hours, according to the note that was circulated earlier alerting us to this meeting, there will be a show of hands on the following, in the Village Hall: 1. the future of the Post Office and Stores, 2. the windfarm and 3. the hunting arrests. I note that both the Hitchens appear incandescently happy, despite – or is it because of – the shock announcement from London that Honeyborne PO and Stores, their livelihood, and their life, was earmarked for closure, along with hundreds or even thousands of other rural sub-post offices.

There was nothing the Hitchens loved more than a good disaster, especially one of which they were fortunate enough to be the epicentre. At one point, I heard Mrs Hitchens remark with great satisfaction that in the middle of difficulty lay opportunity, and that someone clever had said that so it must be true. Einstein, or someone.

‘Cath, I can’t believe you’re here,’ I say, laying my hand on her arm. ‘I know what you have on your plate. The farm shop. The wedding…’ I trail off.

According to Mimi, the affianced Serena has morphed, as so many young women do at this point in their lives, into a female preternaturally interested in her own appearance, shopping, white goods, high-thread-count linens and cutlery – in other words, Serena has blossomed into a raging Bridezilla and was demanding a full-scale white wedding for 250 guests, and was even playing OK and Hello! off against each other in a manner that suggested she might have retained Max Clifford as her own personal, bridal PR. ‘Apparently she spends a lot of time in her wedding dress, standing in front of three-way mirrors, with her veil on and then her veil off, and twirling, asking everyone if her bump is showing, and gazing at her own perfection,’ Mimi had said, back at Perdition.

‘Her bump!’ I had shrieked, amazed at my lack of observational powers, before realizing that in Rougemont Castle, during the week I’d actually been skiing with the newly pregnant Serena, I’d only had eyes for one woman, and it wasn’t La Serenissima. ‘How did you know she was pregnant?’