Initially Tess had been embarrassed. She should have had more sense than to turn up with a bottle of champagne and a vulgar present, like Lady Bountiful spreading alms among the afflicted. She wanted to do a swift about-turn and run back to her hotel. She could have a long bath, a sound night’s sleep and pretend this hadn’t happened. Well, obviously, she would have to display a little more tact. She’d make her excuses and ask Nina to give her a call when she was feeling better. Then she realised that while her visit might not count as divine intervention, it was pretty close. She said as much to Nina, who apologised for making a fool of herself.

‘I should have made dinner for you.’ She sniffled.

‘Relax,’ said Tess, doing her best to sound like she knew what she was doing. ‘This isn’t the time to worry about trivia. Do you not have takeaways in Ranelagh?’

That was how they ended up at the kitchen table, eating prawns bhuna and drinking a bottle of Moët. Tess liked Nina’s kitchen. It was warm and colourful. An old-style bulletin board was festooned with pictures of the girls. A dresser was laden with handmade pottery. If she was nit-picking, she’d say the room was too narrow, the pine cupboards old-fashioned and the appliances out of date. But this wasn’t the time to be picky.

She swirled a piece of naan bread around her bowl. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, Nina, Julian’s got you so ground down that you can’t see clearly. Your thinking’s all wrong.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘First off, you can’t allow him to stalk back in. You’ve got to change the locks.’

‘I can’t do that. What about Bea?’

‘Tell her what you’ve done and give her a new key.’

‘But what about—’

‘Julian? Who gives a monkey’s? Let him go and live with his fancy piece.’ Tess took a swig of champagne. ‘Or – didn’t you say he was a landlord? – let him spend a few weeks in an unheated bedsit with a gang of noisy students next door and a drug dealer down the h all. Some mould. A rat or two.’ An uncomfortable thought popped into her head. ‘Here, you don’t want him back, do you?’

‘God, no. There are rules, though, Tess. This is his house too.’

‘Rules, my eye. Jesus, woman, why do you have to be so bloody reasonable? Stop it. Lose the head a bit. Treat him like he deserves to be treated – like the cockroach he is. And, yeah, I know he’s the girls’ father, and you don’t want to upset them, but girls these days are smart. A lot smarter than we were. They’ll understand.’