Victoria smiled weakly and raised her glass; she could barely taste alcohol these days without wanting to be sick. She wanted to throw it back in the woman’s face – all her success and her money, her family and her obscenely satisfying sex life – but she was not that stupid. She needed the money, the flat, the endless offers of babysitting. One day, perhaps, when Felix was older, at school, when she had found her own happy ending, she could free herself from the chains of their affection and gratitude and start all over again, but for now . . .

‘Thanks, Christine, I appreciate it. All of it.’

The words tasted bitter, and she washed them down with champagne.

‘Excuse me a moment.’

The upstairs bathroom was quiet and cool. She rested her forehead against the mirror, waiting for the hammering in her chest to pass, and then pulled her knickers down and sat on the loo. She felt alone – awfully, terminally alone. They wouldn’t miss her downstairs. They had what they wanted – Felix, playing happily with his father, the illusion of one big happy family in which she was just a bit player. And for now, as long as Felix needed a mother, she was safe. But for how much longer? What would happen when he went to school – a school that Christine would doubtless pay for? When he wanted toys and holidays that Victoria could never afford? They’d take him away from her, and she’d be left with nothing. Of no further use. Nothing to bargain with. She’d be forty, then fifty, alone, too late to start again.

The past was like a dream to her now. She’d been sleepwalking for ten years through an unreal world of lovers and luxury, vaguely aware of alarm bells that were ringing somewhere far away, but refusing to wake . . . Well, now she was awake all right. This was reality – this tenuous grasp on a lifeline that was slipping through her fingers, this play-acting, the smiles and cheers and thanks that allowed them to believe that they had found their happy ending.

A fat teardrop gathered at the end of Victoria’s nose, and fell with a plop on to the bathroom floor, just between her feet. It was followed by another, and another. Victoria put her hands over her face and sat, knickers round her ankles, skirt lifted round her waist, and cried until she had no more tears left.

Nobody came looking for her.

‘My two favourite men in the whole world.’

The champagne had gone straight to Isabelle’s head, and she grabbed Will on one side, Dan on the other, and pulled them into a clumsy group hug.

‘You always did have good taste, Princess.’

Dan manoeuvred her on to a chair before they all toppled over, and placed a selection of canapés in front of her.

‘Come on, Isabelle. Eat something, before you get completely plastered.’