More pressing was working out how the hell I was going to avoid Ruby for now.

Melissa

WEDNESDAY 13 SEPTEMBER

Arriving home from work midweek, I found a white van driver dumping a load of boxes onto our drive.

At the most recent street party meeting on Monday, Lena’s talent show idea had been fully vetoed, the mean girl in me agreeing with Lena’s whispered aside that it was probably because of Ruby’s beautiful voice and Nella’s absolute lack of one (throwing misshapen pots also didn’t count as talent, sadly).

That guy Bill had apparently donated a huge sum already, which was good – though Lena reckoned he was ‘just another showy bore, like the ones lounging round the Sydney marinas when I was a kid, flashing cash in Miami Vice white suits’.

I didn’t know about that – but I did know Bill seemed like the type of bloke who rocked up in Notting Hill because it was in the richest borough in the country, not because he belonged.

Just more flotsam and jetsam.

To skip out of the meeting before Ruby arrived, I’d agreed – rashly – to be in charge of decorating the main marquee, largely to get Nella off my back. It was a tent that she’d wangled for free apparently, which she made sure we knew.

‘Connections, darling.’ She’d given that meaningful Nella smile. ‘I was thinking multicoloured bunting – to represent us all?’

‘Leave it with me,’ I said, and she added me to her efficient checklist.

At home, I’d poured through craft websites like a kid in a sweetshop, ordering a stack of pastel-coloured cotton online. Perhaps it was my own lost childhood but, since becoming a stepmother, I’d found a great and unexpected pleasure in doing what was called ‘craft’. I’d done a bit of knitting with my ‘auntie’ Bev in the only foster home I’d felt safe in and, even as Cecilia lost interest in joining me at the dining table, I’d kept going alone.

If I chose to look at my behaviour, of course – which I totally didn’t – it was probably just another futile attempt to keep the demons at bay, my energy more and more like a frenetic but exhausted tiger, pacing relentlessly inside. Even taking on more work at the gym wasn’t helping.

‘Sorry, mate!’ I hurried up the path now. ‘If I just unlock, can you help bring them in?’

‘Kerbside delivery only.’ The driver was surly.

‘Ah, c’mon.’ I flashed my best smile, to no avail – unsurprising, given I looked like a sweaty dishrag.

‘Not allowed.’ Heartless, he thrust his pad at me. ‘Sign here, please.’

‘But it’s going to rain, hon,’ I said plaintively.

‘Sorry, hon.’

As he turned away, I restrained myself from flicking Vs behind his back as I felt the first drop on my face.

Ten minutes later, soaked through, I was dragging the second box into the garage when a bike hissed to a halt on the wet tarmac behind me.