Afterwards we went on to the Ritz where she bought us both a celebratory afternoon tea once we’d tidied our rather ravaged faces in the swish ladies’ loo. (And the waiter said it was nice to see me again, madam, so I nearly asked whether they wanted a writer in residence or even just anything expensive promoted in my next book.)

We settled down over the teacups to a major, major catch-up of everything that’s been happening to us both, and hers sounded much worse than mine. They should warn you what pregnancy’s like; it all sounded appalling, and no wonder the birth rate was falling.

Then we went back to Linny’s, where Tershie also embraced me, smelling of some fabulously expensive aftershave, and said he was glad we’d made up our spat (little did he know the cause and he was never going to learn it from me). He phoned Lemonia to see if they could find us a table and they could, so we had another celebration and I felt like I’d done nothing but sign books, eat and drink all day, and could there be a more perfect way to spend my time?

Tershie sent me home in a taxi again, only unfortunately it turned out to be the driver who spent the last long journey telling me about his seaside holidays as a child, and it wasn’t any more interesting the second time round than the first.

I felt as if I’d had a lifeline restored now that I was speaking to Linny again. Soon after she rang me to say that her Mills & Boon had been accepted! Subject to a major rewrite, of course, but Linny – accepted! She said Tershie was terribly proud of her, and now she felt that she could call herself a writer at last instead of being secretly envious of my success, even though she was always delighted for me.

I said I’d only just had any success, and I was sure she’d be a mega seller. I asked her to come to the SFWWR Summer Party with me, where she’d meet lots of other M&B writers, which would be useful, and she wouldn’t feel that she just tagging along with me either.

Nathan, too, had fallen into the habit of phoning me up (although sometimes at rather strange hours of the day or night) for little chats about nothing much, which was lovely. We got on so well, and he sort of filled the place Sergei used to occupy with his daily phone calls telling me how his feet hurt, or how he had a mysterious ache somewhere, though I still didn’t know what to do with myself on Mondays.