The wooden shutters were pulled across the windows, imprisoning the muslin curtains, and faint strains of music could be heard – not The Rite of Spring but something rather melancholy and indefinably Russian, as is Sergei, though you’d think he’d at least have lost all trace of his Russian accent after all these years. Grigor sounds totally British and he hasn’t been here for half as long.

Linny was fatter, if anything, and gloomier too, so I stayed over on Thursday night to try to cheer her up and we had dinner at the literati- and glitterati-rich Lemonia. I was hoping as usual that some of the magic fairy dust of fame would rub off on my wings.

We settled down to spotting the minor celebs but there was no one really exciting in that night, not even anyone exciting’s children. Then, as we were looking at the wine list, Linny said suddenly that she didn’t seem to fancy alcohol somehow, wasn’t it funny? And she had gone totally off tea and coffee too.

‘Maybe you’re pregnant?’ I said jokingly. It wasn’t funny to Tertius, who would have loved children, though Linny had been hot and cold about having a baby for years, which was just as well since she’d never managed to start one.

Well, she looked at me like someone had tent-pegged the idea into her head with a mallet, and I stared back at her and said, ‘Linny, you’re not, are you?’

‘I simply never thought of that, after all this time,’ she said in a peculiar voice, and just at this interesting – if faintly appalling – moment, who should walk into Lemonia but Sergei with Tube Man on his arm. If I hadn’t been sitting down, I would have fallen over.

Linny continued to stare pallidly at me, her lips silently moving, while I looked beyond her, wondering if I was hallucinating. Sergei still stood near the door gesticulating vehemently – but then, he always thought he was so famous he didn’t need to book a table, one would magically appear (and actually, he was quite right, one very often did). Then he caught my eye, smiled brilliantly, and began to make his way towards me with Tube Man following behind along with a protesting waiter, though Sergei’s smile vanished when he saw Linny with me. He’d only really met her to talk to a few times and so hadn’t had a chance to dislike her, so I didn’t know why – unless he took against her when she popped round with that message for me that time.