The point of this dinner party was for everyone to meet Blair, Hattie’s new beefcake of a boyfriend, who was a perfect Ken to her Barbie. A long time ago Si and his sister had looked alike but Hattie had changed beyond recognition over the last ten years. She now resembled a doll. Her skin was permanently tanned and waxy, her lips looked puffed and painful, her hair was bleached blonde and of adjustable length, her eyebrows crawled across her ironed forehead, and her lashes flapped like crows’ wings, casting shadows across her double-G breasts. The result of all the nips and tucks was that she had achieved a look of 100 per cent fakery and utterly indeterminate age – she could be anything from forty to eighty.

As the wine flowed, Emma slipped further and further out of the conversation. She couldn’t focus at all tonight. However, she did notice that a game of musical chairs seemed to be going on around the table: people were up and down and moving about. She became aware of Si mocking his sister and knew he was about to tell the story of when they were kids and how Hattie had dropped his cigarettes down a gorge in the south of France. Emma had heard this story too many times. It wasn’t even that good because Si was not a great storyteller. He was sweet and good but he didn’t have what might be called charisma. Emma’s eyes glanced across the room at the other guests as he began it. She smiled encouragingly. This is the way we have to behave in couples, she thought, we support them in their delusions. She wished she had a girlfriend to go on walking holidays with, to compare notes on their partners, to laugh about sexual positions, to feel part of some sisterhood. But all of Emma’s friends had moved into a different world of parenting, sharing things that she wasn’t a part of any more. They didn’t quite know what to do with her these days, quite what to say. She had felt herself a cause of unease, an eggshell not to be stepped on, her very presence awkward and embarrassing. And nice as they were, they had stopped inviting her.

Emma stared at her glass. She picked it up and knocked it back. She looked over at Si. Adrian’s girlfriend thought his gorge story was very funny so he was happy. How dare he be happy? She couldn’t think straight; she didn’t mean that. She poured the last of the bottle on the table into her neighbour’s glass, feeling too self-conscious to share the dribbles. Ken, or Blair, or whoever he was, noticed and passed another bottle down the table; she was grateful for that and waited for someone to pour it into her glass. No one did.