What had Eleanor said? Eight of them? It might as well have been an army on leave. Angie surveyed the living room – the rubbish, broken glass and food trodden into the floor, the discarded clothes and shoes – and tried to decide where to start. She caught sight of the terrace though the living room window. The mess was even worse out there. When Eleanor had said she’d pay her time and a half, Angie had told her not to worry, that her usual hourly rate was fine, even on a Sunday morning, but now she was glad Eleanor had insisted.

‘The kitchen’s in a godawful state.’ Eleanor was behind her. Her voice was quiet and croaky, her eyes hidden behind her huge white-rimmed sunglasses. ‘Our friends will be down for breakfast soon and right now I can’t even see the coffee percolator let alone use it.’

‘I’ll start in there then.’

Angie sighed when she walked into the kitchen. She didn’t feel like cleaning today. She promised herself a walk when she was finished. Maybe she would catch the bus out to Zennor and climb up to the Quoit. As she ran the hot tap to fill a bucket, she recalled the day Rob asked her to marry him. They’d walked up the tor, heading for the ancient burial chamber, five large rocks supporting a huge slab of granite, and got caught in biblical rain. Soaked through, they’d run the last hundred yards, laughing and slipping over wet stones and grass. They reached the Zennor Quoit which, he told her eagerly as they marched up the hill, had been built over three thousand years earlier and was one of only eight remaining quoits on the West Penwith moor, and he leant her back against it. How warm his lips had felt on hers. How hard his chest through his sodden shirt. She’d laughed through tears of joy when he dropped to his knee in the mud and pulled a small velvet box out of his pocket. The ring inside had a tiny perfect diamond on it.

I’m sorry it’s not bigger, Ange.

‘You daft sod,’ she whispered as she squeezed some Fairy into the bucket. ‘I’d have been happy with a plastic one from a Christmas cracker.’

She stared at the hot water as it rose and foamed and listened to footsteps crossing the living room. Then Max’s study door opened and she heard Eleanor say something to him, though it was too quiet to make out what. More hushed whispers. Then the door closed.

Angie got on with the binning, wiping, and spraying until gradually order began to return. She tried to ignore their rising voices but it quickly became impossible.

‘An embarrassment?’

‘You. And the others. On David like a pack of rabid dogs.’

‘Ha! As if you can talk? Flirting with that girl! A child for God’s sake!’