‘You didn’t want to come. I asked you. You said it would be boring, and that – and I quote – all the parties I go to these days are dull and full of puffed-up idiots who only want to talk about books and the view up their own arses. Which, incidentally, is pretty bloody accurate.’

‘Not on this occasion. I mean, Christ, look at her? How old is she? Twenty-one? Twenty-two?’

‘I have absolutely no idea. She works at the publishing house.’

‘God!’ she shouted bitterly. ‘It’s so humiliating, you prancing about town with girls young enough to be your daughter while you abandon your wife at home. How everybody must be laughing!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘I’m being ridiculous, am I? You, Max Davenport, are a grade-A arsehole! And why do you never take me out anymore?’

‘I don’t take you out because…’ He stopped himself. Edie knew what he was going to say. Of course she did. Taking Eleanor out always ended badly.

‘Because what?’

He hesitated. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘What? Because I’ll embarrass you? Shame you? Cause a scene?’

‘Stop it, Eleanor—’

‘No, I won’t stop it. You have no idea what it’s like for me. You and a seemingly endless tide of young women who are no more than a pair of tits on legs. It’s pathetic. If it’s not some tart from the publishing house, it’s your secretary or the au pair or fucking Etienne—’

Her mother’s voice choked with emotion and Edie drew her knees tight up to her chest and hugged them.

‘—and I have to be in this horrible house filled with her dreadful bits of so-called art which remind me every day about what you did.’

‘How many times do I need to tell you, nothing went on between me and Etienne—’

‘Ha! You expect me to believe that? You bought six of those hideous paintings because you actually like them?’

‘Yes. That’s exactly it. I told you—’

‘Yes, I know, I know! You got talking to her in Cannes and somehow felt compelled to spend thousands of pounds on her work out of the goodness of your heart to help an up-and-coming artist.’ Eleanor spat out a bitter laugh. ‘Of course, the fact that she was twenty-eight with long dark hair and a thirty-six inch chest has nothing to do with it.’

‘You’re being hysterical, Eleanor. Try and pull yourself together.’

There was a silence then. Edie pictured her mother’s seething face. Anger building like a pressure cooker. Perhaps muttering about wanting to drive a knife into his philandering heart.