Everybody laughed and turned to see whether Emma was laughing. She hated Adrian then. Adrian, the caring barrister who defends trafficked women but visits prostitutes. She knew this because Si once let it slip by mistake.

Slowly, she got up from her chair; her voice was low and calm. ‘Yes,’ she said, looking at Adrian. ‘Just imagine that.’ She wiped her mouth with her napkin and put it down, tucking her chair in to the table. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘I’m just going to the bathroom.’

She hadn’t meant to make a statement with it, but, nevertheless, she was aware of a momentary silence in her wake. She could hear the conversation pick up again by the time she got to the stairs. She went up slowly, hand on the banister. Hold yourself together, she said to herself. She got to the landing and opened the bathroom door. She went inside and locked the door behind her and leant against it, her heart punching fists against her chest. She went to the sink and clutched hold of the rim. She looked up at herself. She had drunk too much. Her hands were trembling.

A knock on the door startled her. She cleared her throat and turned on the tap.

‘Just a moment!’ she cried.

She flushed the loo for effect. She sat down. Pull yourself together, woman. She took a deep shaky breath. She could hear mocking laughter from directly beneath her and she hated them all. There was another knock on the bathroom door.

‘Em?’ Si tried the handle. ‘You all right? Let me in!’

She thought about it and then got up and unlocked the door. She let him in and locked the door behind him.

He stood there looking at her. She felt foolish. She hated making a scene.

‘Come on, Em . . .’

‘Come on what?’ She was torn: she didn’t want to ruin the party but she was spoiling for a fight. ‘They sit there, that bunch of bloody hypocrites, Hattie in all her fakery, with the meal she hasn’t cooked, the hair she didn’t grow, that moron of a boyfriend, making these judgements.’

‘Woah!’ he said. She knew he would defend his sister.

‘They think everything is there to be joked about, to be mocked. Well, it’s not, Simon. Everything is not funny. Some things are not funny.’

‘That’s just Adrian. You know how he is.’

‘They’re a bunch of frauds.’

‘Right . . . Well, who’s being judgemental now?’

She hated him, him and his stupid sister. ‘She’s worth ten of that lot.’

‘Who is?’

‘Connie.’ She corrected herself. ‘Constance Mortensen.’

He was looking at her in the same way she tried not to look at her patients. ‘What did you say?’