‘I thought you were all about green, naughty Ish!’ Nella nodded at the Ducati. ‘Don’t they just chuck out fumes?’

Her own Porsche was an extortionately expensive hybrid, naturally.

‘Just a penis extension isn’t it, darl, your new toy?’ Lena shook her curls out of the bike helmet. ‘Not that you need it.’

‘If you say so, dear.’ Ish raised an eyebrow. ‘I got it before I joined the green brigade, Nella. It’s my last extravagance. Don’t shout at me please!’

‘Really, girls, he’s like a new dad again.’ Lena grinned. ‘I reckon it’s cos they can’t make babies themselves, men and their engine obsession.’

‘I’ll give you a tinker.’ Ish unzipped his own leathers, revealing a very vibrant Hawaiian shirt. He carried it off well, given how ugly it was.

‘Promises, promises.’ Lena met her husband’s eye very directly, and I felt a frisson of something I couldn’t name.

‘This is Bill,’ Marcus introduced the man on his other side now; he of the silver sports car. ‘Newly of Northgate Square.’

‘Aha!’ Ish dropped his bags of marshmallows onto the pile and offered his hand. ‘The international man of mystery! Pleased to meet you.’

Indeed, Nella’s great surprise had been that Bill – the man in the sports car – was the new neighbour from the square: the thoughtless one who’d built on and on forever and a day, the one who’d carefully carved his initials in the steel of his electric gates.

Turned out they’d known him all along, via Rebekah’s husband Pete.

Tonight, then, it seemed all was forgiven – even though, with his swept-back badger-streaked hair, a ton of Tom Ford and traces of an accent I couldn’t quite place, he seemed duller than anyone could have hoped. The fact he’d brought a crate of vintage Champagne so expensive we could have all flown to Barbados on the proceeds made him more attractive to some.

Melissa had been an age fetching the tent pegs but, on her return, she’d pulled me aside. ‘Has anyone else turned up, apart from Nella?’

‘Only that guy Bill.’ I’d gestured at him, swapping stories with Marcus of Rugby World Cup games they’d attended.

‘No, not him.’ Melissa had shaken her head. ‘Who’s he when he’s at home?’

‘That rich dude from the square – who calls the flash house home. Why, who were you expecting?’ I was intrigued – but Melissa had shaken her head again.

‘Oh, no one. Just wondering.’

She’d seemed a little flustered, clutching her Tarot cards – but any chance to grill her had been promptly truncated by Ceci asking to use her stepmum’s hotspot. ‘I’ve got no data left,’ she’d moaned.

‘I love a man who knows his vintage,’ Rebekah purred now as Bill popped a bottle and frothed it towards her suggestively.

‘Me? I have simple pleasures.’ He winked, the fizz slopping down the side like lava. ‘A man of the people.’

‘So if we’re all done eating, time for the sing-song, guys!’ Nella clapped her hands like a head girl, swishing her blonde sausage curls.