Five minutes later, I left the bathroom, feeling much better, full of energy again and shaking my head at the horrible coy ‘Poo Drops’ – oh how the other half live – above the toilet. But opening the bathroom door, I was more than a little disconcerted to find Nella there in her bedroom.

I froze, seeing that silly woman Rebekah too, feet dangling from the giant bed – like something from Roald Dahl, I thought, in a haze.

‘I just don’t know who’d do it,’ Nella was saying. ‘Don’t understand.’

‘So awful for you, but you mustn’t let it get out – must you?’ Rebekah answered her as I stepped onto the plush pile carpet. ‘It wouldn’t be good.’

‘Melissa!’ Nella, standing at the door to the enormous walk-in wardrobe, looked round quickly. ‘I didn’t realise you were in there.’

‘Sorry.’ Immediately I felt like a naughty child, guilt written all over my face. ‘I was just using the loo; the other one was busy.’ I patted my pockets surreptitiously. Had I left something behind me?

‘It’s fine, darling.’ Nella’s smile didn’t touch the Botox. ‘I was just helping Rebekah find something to wear. Her seam just split.’

She seemed unfocused, for her.

‘Too many brownies.’ Rebekah laughed that ugly laugh, and I felt a sudden urge to punch her.

‘Rebekah!’ Nella reproved, catching my eye. ‘It’s not funny.’

‘Oh, isn’t it?’ She hiccupped drunkenly. ‘Sorry.’

‘I don’t think so, do you?’ Nella turned back to her row of jeans. They looked like they’d all been ironed.

When I came out of the room, Rex was waiting on the landing, in that stupid ringmaster outfit. It was so awful, it made me want to laugh hysterically in his face.

‘Where’ve you been? I was looking everywhere.’

‘Just peeing.’ I smiled hopefully at him, pushing aside my fear I might have just left some clue in Nella’s en suite.

‘Doesn’t take that long to take a piss,’ he said crudely.

‘And touching up my face.’ I looked up at him, and he knew what I meant.

Just as I’d known Fin had understood what he’d seen.

‘Well, I’m needed,’ Rex said, ‘outside. Hurry up.’

As we went downstairs, I felt his hand around my wrist, pinching the skin, and it hurt.

But no one was there to see now.

Ruby

At 8 p.m., Nella and her shadow Rebekah appeared, Nella banging a gong – posh people own such things, it transpired: to tell us it was time to go outside, for music and fireworks – but just the sound of it made me uncomfortable. I guessed it probably used to gather staff in days gone by, and its reverberations were like a voice in my own head: driving home the huge gulf between Zach’s life to the kids on this side of the square.

Not that I wanted my children to bang gongs themselves, at anyone.

‘We’ll miss the cutting of the ribbon if we don’t hurry,’ Nella cried, face slightly flushed. The thick dark eye make-up she’d come back wearing this afternoon had started to slide in the heat, and her hair was messier than usual. I felt a twinge of satisfaction as I realised, for the first time ever, Nella looked less than perfect.