When I got home I was exhausted as usual, although I had had a refreshing glimpse of Tube Man in London, the dark, stubbly chinned, handsome hunk who had fuelled my fantasies for some time, and inspired the hero of my last three novels and my new one, even though I feared he might only be a figment of my fevered imagination.

Sometimes I dreamed that I was struggling through a crowded tube carriage towards him, and then all the arms barring the way turned into thorny branches that held me fast while he smiled sadly and turned away … and why did I never dream I’d got a pair of secateurs in my hand?

So, with one thing and another, I wasn’t quite in the mood when a woman phoned me at eight and said, ‘Hello? Is that Tina Devino?’

‘It was the last time I looked in the mirror,’ I admitted cautiously.

‘Well, I …’ There was a short pause, followed by a harrumphing noise that wouldn’t have disgraced a meditative bison. ‘I,’ she announced grandly, in the kind of voice usually heard through a megaphone at horse shows, ‘I am the president of the local branch of the WFIA—’

‘The what?’

‘Women For Intellectual Advancement, Ms Devino. I discovered from the library that you are a local author, and although you only write romance, I thought my little group might get something out of a talk by you.’

I was quite accustomed to these insults, so I said that was kind of her, but I didn’t do many talks because I was a bit busy trying to earn a living, and how much were they thinking of paying me?

‘Oh, we don’t pay our speakers! It is very prestigious to be asked to address us at all – quite an honour – and who knows where it might lead?’

‘If I spent all my time talking for nothing it would lead to bankruptcy,’ I informed her shortly. ‘I mean, you don’t call a plumber out and expect them to work for nothing, do you?’

‘That is hardly the same thing,’ she snapped. ‘Ramona Gullet, the famous crime novelist, recently gave us some fascinating insights into criminal psychology and she certainly didn’t ask for any fee, despite being terribly well known and respected!’

The inference being, of course, that I was not.

‘Bully for her!’ I said.

The woman turned all frosty and said she was sorry she’d ever asked me because I was clearly not quite what they were looking for, and then she put the phone down.

Two

Fluffed