Poppy Takes Manhattan had hit the UK properly a couple of weeks after the episode they’d all watched at Olivia’s house, and had been both critically and popularly received. Poppy had had the inevitable offers of nearly naked men’s magazine shoots as a result, but had refused all of them. This was partly out of loyalty to Damian, who had been left so badly in the lurch by the men’s magazine world for which he had worked so brilliantly. Partly, though, it was because she didn’t think that getting her kit off for cameras should be part and parcel of her job; also, cannily, she thought that, even though she’d no doubt look just fine in the shots, her street-cred would be immensely improved by not going down that route. Just because everybody else did it, it didn’t mean that she had to.

‘Ooooh, yippeeee! Thanks for telling me, Belles! I still can’t believe I’ve got such an amazing job! Actually, at the moment, I’m in LA …’ Of course you are, thought Bella. ‘… PTM is up for a Pluto award, so I’ve got to get all tarted up in a few days’ time. I bet they try to put me in some hideous gown with borrowed diamonds, but I’ll try to stay a bit me, if I can.’

‘Old Converse underneath to scruff it up a bit?’

‘Oooh, good idea. Not. A touch Lily Allen circa 2005?’

Bella laughed. ‘OK, that was a crap idea. How’s Damian?’

‘Not great. We’ve been arguing pretty much nonstop ever since we got to New York. He’s so bloody jealous and touchy about everything, I simply don’t know what to do about it. It’s not exactly how I envisioned married life.’ And Poppy told Bella about Jack Meadows and the jocks in the Hamptons jerking off over her show.

‘Well, you can hardly blame him for being jealous, can you?’ Bella hated herself for not being more supportive, but Poppy seemed so bloody pleased with herself. Film stars trying to snog her? Random strangers telling her that they wanked over her? Jesus H Christ.

‘I KNOW THAT! But for fuck’s sake, Belles, I can’t go on apologizing forever, can I?’

Bella looked around at her empty flat, out at the rain pouring down outside, and pictured Poppy, blonde, aglow and beautiful in the LA sunshine, about to receive an award for something that came so naturally and easily to her, just as everything came so naturally and easily to her. Then she pictured Andy sitting in some cosy pub with that skinny bitch Alison, and squidged the unwelcome flesh around her middle again.

‘Oh, I don’t know, Pops. Whatever.’

When they hung up, both friends felt sad.

Andy, sitting with his pint of Guinness in the Antelope, just off Eaton Square, was feeling sad too.

He couldn’t understand why Bella was being so ridiculously needy. Compared to the disgusting things he was currently immersed in for work, they had such a lovely life together; her mood swings were starting to become pretty tiresome.