“You look lost in thought,” said a voice. It was Charlie, glossy-haired and elegant in a red silk top and dark linen skirt, looking as out of place in the Crown & Sceptre as a long-stemmed rose in a cabbage patch.

“What are you doing here?” said Lulu.

“I went to my hairdresser on Upper Street, so I thought I’d come and see your new place of employ.” She looked around at the beige walls and stained and patterned carpet. “It’s not exactly the Palais-Royal, is it? Can I have a glass of wine?”

“I really wouldn’t,” said Lulu. “I’m off in a couple of minutes, let’s go to the Albion.”

As the two young women walked out together, Lulu caught the eye of the thin young man, who nodded to himself with the air of a mystery solved.

“You did not,” remarked Charlie mildly when they were ensconced in the garden of the Albion in a shady spot under the wisteria tree, “look like you were having the time of your life in there.”

“It’s honest work,” said Lulu. “We can’t all cater to people who are rich enough to stay at the Fitzcharles.” Then relented: alone with Charlie, she was able to let down the wall of defensiveness that so many others found impenetrable. “But it’s not really what I’m cut out for,” she admitted, “looking after people and spreading good cheer and such.” She looked across the table, thoughtfully, at her friend: it occurred to her that, although the scale of expenditure at the Crown & Sceptre was hardly that of the Fitzcharles, still, what Charlie did for her living was not so very far removed from what Lulu was currently doing for hers. The difference was that Charlie, unlike Lulu, seemed to enjoy it. “You’re quite good at it, though, aren’t you?”

“It seems to be in my genes.” Charlie nodded. “I do like arranging things so that people are happy, it’s the old Irish hospitality in me, I think. And of course, it’s been so easy for me with my dad and the hotels, so I’m lucky there.”

“It’s a funny thing, luck, isn’t it?” It had been too long, Lulu thought, since she and Charlie had sat alone together, as they used to when they were at university, undistracted by Charlie’s career or Lulu’s sisters, turning over the world and its workings. “You’ve got your career and lots of money, so you’re lucky there, but you lost your mum, which is really unlucky. Do you miss her?”

“Mum?” Charlie twirled her wineglass thoughtfully: she had been hardly more than a baby when her mother had died, and rarely spoke of her. “I can’t say I really miss her as such, because I don’t really remember her. There’s always been Maeve in the background, although she’s always been sort of off in her own world of cookery. It’s really been my dad and my brother Liam and me, and we all get along really well, even though Dad and Liam are always off traveling the world. I know we’re unusual, but it’s the way it is, and it’s what seems normal to me. That’s why it’s so interesting for me to watch you and your family, so many women, and all living so close to each other, and talking things over all the time; it’s something I don’t know. It feels sort of exotic somehow, like living in a foreign country.”