‘Because you’ve never shown any interest in meeting other writers before, and usually you’re going to some much grander function whenever I ask you,’ I pointed out.

She said she couldn’t compromise her social position because of Tershie, but she’d try and ‘network’ a bit more in future whenever she could, and as she had a copy of the SFWWR membership application form in her handbag, who knew?

Linny was very jealous of my diamond heart, though she had enough precious trinkets of her own to start a shop. I had to wear it everywhere, including to bed, since anyone could break into my cottage with a bent nail file and I simply couldn’t afford to burglar-proof it, so I just hoped for the best and the attention of my terribly nosy neighbour, the Rottweiler of Shrimphaven.

I did once have engagement and wedding rings, but flogged them long ago to buy a really nice winter coat in a sale. It stood me in good stead for years, and I just don’t think it’s possible to wear cashmere out, do you?

So now I was not so much wearing my heart on my sleeve as round my neck, and it was much admired at the SFWWR meeting.

A journalist phoned me up at the crack of dawn about some tabloid photos of which I knew nothing until then, so I dashed out to buy the rag. The newsagent gave me a very slimy look – and, oh my God! There was this series of mercifully fuzzy snaps of Sergei’s back garden taken last year with the caption: ‘Sexy Sergei in Rites of Spring’, which I thought was pretty clever for a guess, and fortunately you couldn’t make the woman out at all clearly because of the well-draped dancer.

It’s just a pity the foliage wasn’t that thick the previous year because normally Sergei’s garden is like a green cave by May.

I managed to get Sergei on the phone just before he left for his classes and he’d already been hassled too, but said he had declined to comment except to say that he hoped his neighbours had better things to do than spy on him, let alone photograph him about his private pursuits, and one of the reporters had made a crack about pursuits that had really got his back up.

‘You will deny everything, Tsarina,’ he said grandly, which of course I was going to do anyway.

Then next day’s spread was headlined: ‘Was Sergei’s Nymph Write In There?’ with that photo of me and Sergei coming out of Lemonia (you know, the one with the drunken daisies?) and the article was all innuendo and speculation, though it did give ‘saucy Tina’s sex-romp novels’ a good plug, even if not in terms I would have preferred.