‘That is not the reason,’ Minnie said, talking to her friend in the reflection. ‘They couldn’t afford New Year’s Eve and they got a great deal on the thirtieth. No one else is having a big party the night before New Year’s Eve.’

‘And you wouldn’t have come if it was New Year’s Eve,’ said Leila.

‘But mainly you got a good deal,’ said Minnie.

‘Plus you wouldn’t have come.’

‘But mainly the deal.’

‘And you wouldn’t have come.’

‘The deal.’

‘You.’

‘The deal.’

Minnie’s phone started to ring, which saved the discussion from escalating further. It was her mother.

‘Hi Mum.’

‘Minnie, now, I’m at Tara’s house,’ she said. ‘I’m setting Tara up on a blog page, she wants to write about gardening for anxiety, but I’m struggling to work out this site. Do I want a banner? And would the standard design be OK or should we pay for a theme? And how do we get photos of her garden out of the phone and into the website?’

Minnie closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the barrage of questions.

‘I’m not an expert on blogs, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘Oh wait, I’m with Fleur, she’ll know.’ Minnie covered the receiver and held out the phone to Fleur. ‘Will you talk to my mum about setting up a blog?’

Fleur clicked her fingers, then pushed up the giant pink cylindrical heater she was sitting beneath and took the phone from Minnie. ‘I swear that thing is frying my brain. Hi Connie, yes – what do you need?’

A very confusing conversation followed, where Fleur attempted to talk Minnie’s mother through the options she needed to click, screen by screen. In the end Fleur had to give up.

‘Listen, you’re just in Primrose Hill, aren’t you? We’re all in Chalk Farm at some weird hairdresser’s. I can just nip down there when we’re done, it will take me two seconds to set this up for you if I can see the screen … yes, we can all come … sounds good … I’ll tell Minnie.’

Minnie shook her head wildly and flapped her hand for the phone, but Fleur had already hung up.

‘What?’ Fleur said to Minnie.

‘We can’t all go down there!’ said Minnie.

‘Why not?’ asked Fleur.

‘This is Quinn’s mother’s house, what if he’s there? Plus Tara won’t want a load of strangers coming by.’

‘Who’s Quinn?’ asked Clare.

‘The guy she likes – storm avoider,’ said Leila.

‘Well he’s not going to be there, is he?’ said Fleur. ‘Your mum said Tara wants us all to see the garden or something, said they had a gooseberry tart that needed eating.’

Minnie frowned; she couldn’t go to Tara’s house. What if Quinn popped in and found her there? It would be too awkward. She called her mother back.