‘Sorry.’ She bent to scoop it up. ‘It’s just so good to see you!’

‘And you.’ I peered at her more closely. ‘Are you really pissed?’

‘I’ve only had one,’ Melissa protested. She didn’t sound or smell drunk, it was true. ‘Or maybe two. It is a party. Honestly, I’m so sorry about last night, things just came on top – but God, I’m glad you’re here. I can’t bear these bloody women.’

‘Melissa!’ Who was in earshot? ‘Keep it down a bit!’

‘Ah, don’t be such a prude, Ruby!’

‘I’m not.’ For a moment, I was taken aback. ‘I – I just don’t think shouting about the others here is a good move.’

‘I’m not shouting.’ Her eyes were very glittery now as she gazed at me.

I swallowed. ‘You are – a bit.’ I managed a grin, thinking how thick her eye make-up was for someone who usually went for a clever ‘naked’ look.

‘OK, fair enough.’ She lowered her voice. ‘But you feel the same, don’t you? I mean, look.’ She gestured at Rebekah, now competing with the blonde blogger Jan for neighbour Bill’s attention. ‘They’re all so bloody fake.’

I couldn’t completely disagree, and yet it felt discordant with the occasion.

‘Ah, they’re all right.’ I dropped the napkin into a waste bin. ‘Harmless, really.’

‘Are they though? And did you read Jan’s latest blog?’

‘No.’ I gazed at her. Something was definitely off somewhere.

‘I don’t even believe that’s what you think,’ Melissa went on, plucking a bottle of gin from a vast array of spirits. ‘Most of them aren’t very nice.’ Now she slung the gin into her glass. ‘And they’re all overly minted, or selfish – or both.’

She’s right, I heard my sister Eleanor say. They should know their good fortune.

The penny clanged. There it was: the thing that had troubled me in the summer too. Women bitching about women just reminded me of my mother and my sister, pooling bitterness together over endless pots of tea, sharing invective about the luck of others. My mother, so disappointed in life, after wasting so much of hers on my drunken father.

‘Hang on—’ I began.

‘And if they are OK, then they’re stupid.’ Melissa was on a roll now. ‘Funny how money messes people up, isn’t it?’

‘Melissa!’ I had to dampen this fire. ‘Stop! What’s this really about?’

‘Nothing.’ Gin bottle in hand, she stood in the midst of the people she spoke about, who were milling around, laughing, admiring one another, drinking, comparing notes on work, kids, life. ‘I’m just telling it how it is.’ Melissa stared at me, defiant island in this convivial stream.

‘Yeah, well,’ I stepped in nearer so no one else could hear, ‘that might be, but maybe this isn’t the best place for voicing it.’

‘But they don’t know they’re born, do they, most of them? Spend most of their time – and money – desperate to stay young, while their terrible pompous husbands get fat and complacent.’ She was cross. ‘It’s not surprising they end up snogging each other at dos like this.’