Poppy shrugged it off, as only somebody who’s been told she’s beautiful every day of her life can.

‘No, Andy’s better.’

‘No, Damian’s better.’

‘Andy’s better.’

‘Damian’s better.’

‘Andy!’

‘Damian!’

And on and on they went until Poppy pushed Bella into the water. Bella pulled Poppy in after her by a slender ankle and they laughed and laughed, looking up at the Balearic stars as they floated on extraordinary buoyant fake water lilies that glittered in the myriad lights of the pool.

After a bit, Poppy said, ‘Let’s go and find our wonderful men and see if Pig Sean has managed to find the Beatles track for Natalia yet.’

‘Pig Sean!’ Bella spluttered, nearly falling off her fake lily. ‘That’s brilliant, Pops!’

‘I know. Just call me Oscar Wilde,’ retorted Poppy solemnly. And arm-in-arm, they walked up the pool’s wide, mosaic-tiled steps, happy as pigs in shit.

Natalia wasn’t used to letting her defences drop. In fact she couldn’t remember the last time she had danced with such abandon, but Poppy and Bella had told Pig Sean to play ‘Back in the USSR’ for her, and insisted that everybody – even the guests enjoying themselves on other terraces – danced around her main pool to it. She loved the song, of course she did, especially the bit about the Ukraine girls knocking the Beatles out. She could remember her mamushka playing black-market Beatles LPs when she was a little girl back in Kiev. But for all her apparently insouciant glamour, she would never have insisted on it herself; she wanted everything cool by DJ standards. They were so lucky, these English kids, with their automatic assumption that people wouldn’t call them tacky. They could be ‘retro’ or ‘ironic’ and still considered cool. For Natalia (aged 39 forever) the line was too narrow.

Bella’s ridiculous father was shouting along to the chorus, thrusting his skinny hips at her.

Ha! You would be so lucky, Natalia thought. Men like you used to pay me five grand a night.

Something snapped inside her, and for the first time in years she allowed herself to let her hair down in public. Literally. She unleashed the painfully tight ponytail and shook her platinum-blonde hair around her face as she gyrated round the fabulous property that she had worked so long and hard for.

The crowd whooped and cheered. Quite staggeringly, not a single person was talking about him- or herself, all mesmerized by the ice queen apparently melting. Poppy and Bella, both still in their bikinis, were dancing around her, swishing their wet hair madly.

Once it had finished, Poppy took the mike from Pig Sean.

‘Can we all now raise our glasses to our fabulous hostess, Natalia Evanovitch! Hostess with the mostest!’

‘Hostess with the mostest!’ people hollered drunkenly, though some of them were now starting to lose interest and wanted to talk about themselves again.

‘Natalia, we love you. Thank you so much for everything,’ said Poppy, as Damian approached with an enormous bouquet of lilies. He kissed Natalia, and the less self-absorbed people still watching cheered some more.