With the exception of the handbag episode, their mother was always very composed. She wore glasses that rested on her nose, long navy shift dresses and was always holding a manuscript, or a large glass of wine. She loved parties and gossip, and often worried that Alexa wasn’t having enough fun in London. Alexa tried not to be annoyed that her mother often signed off calls by urging her to do ‘something wild’ that evening. Naturally, Elizabeth adored Ellen.

Alexa and her mother had a standing arrangement: lunch, every month, in which Alexa was obliged to tell her mother everything that had happened in the last four weeks. It always took place on a Saturday, and her mother always picked the restaurant – usually somewhere new, or under-the-radar, or both. Alexa tried not to take it personally that her mother was more plugged into London’s zeitgeist than she was.

The last lunch had taken place about three weeks ago, in Soho, at a small, unobtrusive Spanish place on the corner of Poland Street and D’Arblay Street. It was so unobtrusive, in fact, that Alexa had walked past it three times before finding it. When she did, she spotted her mother sitting on a stool in the window, laughing.

‘You could have called me instead of letting me walk past,’ Alexa said, crossly, allowing the waiter to take her coat.

Her mother had already ordered wine. ‘I’m sorry, darling. It was just too funny.’

‘Clearly.’ Alexa clambered on to the high stool. Her mother was four inches taller than her.

‘Right –’ Elizabeth had already ordered olives, and was gnawing the flesh off one now – ‘this one has to be quick, I have to be back in the office in an hour or so. Marketing meeting.’ She dropped the stone into an earthenware bowl between them. ‘So, let’s start with your love life.’

Alexa had been on two dates with Ben at this point. She recalled the first kiss outside the pub.

‘This bit will be quick too – there is no love life. Work’s busy, though.’

Her mother frowned, fondly. ‘Oh, Alexa, I do hope you’re having enough fun.’

Already.

‘Fun doesn’t have to mean boys, Mum.’

Elizabeth had tutted and taken another olive.

Alexa smiled at the memory now. She knew her mother would be delighted by Ben. Marcus would, she imagined, be charmingly disinterested in him. Her father rarely called, though always professed to be delighted to hear her voice when she rang him. Despite living only a Tube journey away, she did not see him regularly, and suspected that he was currently in the midst of a full-throttle mid-life crisis. He had bought a motorbike and had taken to wearing full leathers in all situations (except, of course, in the office). Still, he’d been useful when they’d had to fight an old landlord to get their deposit back in full.