She also spotted several photos of her, Jules, and Lucy from some of their May Ladies holidays—Venice, New York, Vietnam, and Santorini. Mrs Browning must have put those up, because they’d all been taken after Lucy moved to London.

The tall white dressing table was covered in trinkets and catchalls, as though a teenaged Lucy was about to walk through the door and scrounge for a hair tie or some pale-pink nail polish. The room was rounded out with a bedside table, a small desk and a wooden chair—also white—and on the shelves above the desk was an impressive collection of Sweet Valley High novels. Oh, Luce, you total dag.

“I’ve cleared out the bottom two drawers of the dressing table for you,” said Mrs Browning.

“Oh, thank you. It’s lovely.” Like Barbara Cartland had decorated it for her granddaughter.

Mrs Browning beamed at her and Chloe found herself smiling back. She realised that she hadn’t remembered the Brownings very well. The last time she’d seen them, she was deeply ensconced in her new friendship with the other two MLs and adults were “boring”. Yet, there they were, opening their home to a virtual stranger—at Christmas.

She felt a surge of affection for them both.

There was also a tiny but loud part of her that was dying to give Mrs Browning a makeover. Chloe couldn’t remember exactly how old she was—she rarely noted such details about other people’s parents, even those of her closest friends—but the kind, broad face of the woman now fussing with the throw pillows couldn’t have been any older than sixty. Yet she dressed like she had one foot in the grave.

“Now,” said Mrs Browning, turning back to Chloe. “I expect you will want a bath, a hot meal, and bed, in that order. Have I got that right?”

Chloe glanced at the clock on the bedside table. 6:03pm. It didn’t matter what time it was in Melbourne. She needed to acclimate as soon as possible to UK time, so Mrs Browning’s suggestions seemed perfect. Except the bit about the bath.

“That sounds divine, thank you. But …” A pair of eyebrows shot up to a hairline inquisitively. “Can I just have a shower instead?”

“Oh, of course, love.”

The weight of the journey hit her with full force and all Chloe wanted was that shower. “We have a handheld nozzle for that business.” A handheld what? “We tend to take baths here, but last time she visited, Max bought the nozzle for Lucy.”

“Er, right.”

Chloe got undressed in the frigid bathroom and stepped tentatively into the massive bathtub, her flesh covered in tiny bumps. After fiddling with the taps and waiting for what felt like forever, she discovered that tepid was as warm as the water got and that the handheld nozzle put out little more than a trickle. She rinsed as quickly as she could, bracing herself against the cold water and even colder air, then got out and wrapped the towel tightly around her, attempting to get warm.