‘Do you remember when they were little,’ Cecilia said in a strange voice and Charlotte knew she was pulling down her lips as she reapplied her mascara. ‘We always used to think Lotts would end up with Jules? They just seemed to go so well together.’

‘They still do.’

‘Mmm. Such a shame they broke up. Jules has really gone off the rails again. I think she was rather a calming influence on him.’

‘And vice versa, darling.’

‘Jules? Calming?’ Cecilia sounded confused.

‘Oh, I know he’s a little wild but he’ll calm down soon enough. It’s a phase. And the thing is, he understands her – that’s what she needs, although God knows she’d never admit to knowing it.’ There was a small pause. ‘I’ll tell you something I’ve never said to anyone before,’ her mother said, dropping her voice a little. ‘But I’ve always been so worried Charlotte will take after her father. They’re so alike it frightens me.’

‘You mean—?’

‘Their passions, excesses, yes. Life’s too easy for them. Everything’s a party.’

‘So then, couldn’t this boy be good for her? He seems very stable.’

‘No! On the contrary, he’s the very worst thing for her. Don’t you see? He’s just another of her obsessions, an infatuation, a novelty act. What she needs is someone who comes from her world, who’s not impressed by it all. I mean, I really thought at one point that boy was going to invade the stage and piggyback Paul—’

He didn’t wait for her answer, lighting it easily, one-handed, as he drove. Practised, deft, angry, she saw he was no longer, in any lingering way, the man-child she’d once known, struggling to find his new place in the world. His beautiful enquiring mind had dislocated him from his roots into her star-dusted orbit, before spinning him out again into another world – this one, in the Spanish heat and dust, with a sexy woman on a balcony and a baby on her hip.

‘What’s her name?’

She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but it was uncontainable, the question lurching from her like seeds spilling from a pod, as inevitable and natural as a cloud bursting with rain. ‘Your wife, I mean.’ She looked down at his hand – no ring, but that meant nothing; plenty of men didn’t wear wedding rings. Her father hadn’t. ‘Or girlfriend. The one at the apartment.’

He looked dumbfounded by the question, as though it was somehow scandalous she had dared to ask it. ‘That’s none of your business.’

‘I’m only asking her name, not her life story.’

He glanced across at her angrily. ‘You don’t need to know anything about her. She’s nothing to do with you.’

Charlotte watched his profile as he drove, faster again. ‘So – what? I’m not allowed to know anything about your life? Nothing?’

He looked dead ahead. ‘That’s right. Nothing at all.’

‘Why not? What is it you think I’m going to do? Tell her about us?’