‘It seems like it. I definitely caught my mother with a bride's magazine very shortly after she and Dad met John's parents.’

Karen had sighed.

‘And there isn't a soul in the village who isn't bestfriends with, or related to, either John or me!' Dora shuddered at the thought of all those disapproving looks and forthright comments she had left behind. 'And as they all say I've broken John's heart, and perhaps I have, that leaves me as Norman No-Mates.'

‘Norma No-Mates,' Karen had said.

‘Whatever!'

‘You go to Mum. You can keep an eye on her and she'll look after you. She loves looking after people.'

‘She may be relishing her freedom,' Dora had pointed out.

‘Freedom is something you choose to have. Mum was dumped for a younger woman. She'll be feeling awful.' Karen's indignation was audible over thousands of miles of airwaves. 'I know Dad wouldn't have left her if I'd been around. He just waited until I was out of the way. Bastard!’

Dora had tutted. 'Karen! That's no way to talk about your father!'

‘But Dora, how would you feel about your dad if he'd left your mother after nearly thirty years?’

Dora had considered. 'Yes, OK, I see what you mean.’

Now, she looked around her while Karen's mother found glasses and a bottle of wine. They'd dumped her various bags in the cabin which was to be Dora's 'for as long as she needed it'. The saloon was much larger than she'd expected, with a sitting area down one end, a kitchen – or should that be galley? she wondered – and eating area down the other. The walls were painted white and the ceiling was panelled wood. There was some sort of stove in one corner, and a banquette and chairs nearby. It was very cosy, but not, now she thought about it, terribly tidy.

‘There's a packet of crisps in that cupboard,' said Mrs Edwards. 'Get it out, would you? There's a bowl in there somewhere, too.'

‘Would you like me to use the china bowl or the wooden one, Mrs Edwards?’

Mrs Edwards regarded Dora with a horrified expression. 'Oh, call me Jo, please! No one calls me Mrs Edwards these days. I'd assume that my mother-in-law had risen from the grave and appeared at my shoulder.’

Dora felt embarrassed. 'Have you gone back to your maiden name, then? I wouldn't blame you-'

‘Oh no, or at least, I suppose I might, it's just that everyone calls me Jo. You must too.'

‘OK, Jo. Which bowl?' Dora lost her shyness now she was using Jo's first name. It put them on a more equal footing.

Jo pointed to the wooden one, handed Dora a glass and sat down on the banquette, finding space for her own glass among the piles of papers, recipe books and a make-up bag. 'Put the crisps down somewhere while I think what we're going to have for supper. Tomorrow there's a gala dinner. I've bought you a ticket.'

‘You must let me pay you back for it,' said Dora, sitting down opposite her new landlady. 'You needn't worry that I'm going to sponge off you. I'm going to pay my way.'

‘I'll accept a small rent,' said Jo, 'because one must be sensible about these things, but not until you've got a job.'

‘I've got savings,' protested Dora. 'It was meant for the honeymoon.' Then she realised she'd said a trigger word for an explosion of tears. She'd liked her job and had hated leaving it when she had to escape the village.

Possibly sensing Dora's potential wobble, Jo said quickly, 'We'll sort everything like that out later. Just drink your wine and relax for a moment. We could go out for fish and chips,' she added.

Dora sniffed valiantly. 'That would suit me.’

‘When I think of all the proper meals I made for my husband, when really, I'd've been perfectly happy eating scrambled eggs and salad most of the time, it makes me realise what an utter waste of time marriage can be. You were very sensible not going through with your wedding.’

Dora took a sip of wine to see off the tears that still threatened. 'You should have heard my mother on the subject. I could have been a scarlet woman abandoning my six starving children to become a Madam in a brothel, the way she went on.’

Jo sighed. 'It would have been extremely hard work arranging the wedding, and cancelling it all would have been worse.'

‘I did offer to do it all, but she just took over.’

Dora's mother didn't trust Dora to do anything as grown up as organise a wedding, although she felt she was perfectly grown up enough to get married, even if Dora was only twenty-two.

‘She's a very efficient woman.'

‘Mm,' Dora muttered into her glass.

‘But it would have been quite wrong of you to have gone through with it if you didn't feel it was right, just to save face.'

‘That's what I think, but Mum didn't agree. She said she could never hold her head up in the village again, and wouldn't even let me send the wedding presents back! She was so furious she just wanted me out of her sight and to do it herself.'

‘If Karen had been here, you could have gone to her,' said Jo, 'but as she's not, she was quite right to suggest you came to me.'

‘I'm sure.' Dora sipped again. Somehow she did feel better just being here with Jo.

‘We're both running away, really,' said Jo, thoughtfully.

‘I'm running away from the wreckage of a marriage and you're running away from a wedding.'

‘Was it awful when your husband left you? Sorry!' said Dora. 'That sounds so stupid. Of course it was! I'm just thinking how John must have felt.'

‘He couldn't have felt quite the same as I did,' said Jo. 'I mean, he's in his twenties and has got all his life before him. He's bound to find someone else. I'm fifty, no one is going to want me.'

‘Oh, I'm sure that's not true..

Jo laughed. 'It's OK! I wouldn't have anyone else, not now. Years and years of my life I dedicated to my husband and child – did I get a long-service medal? No I did not. I got dumped for a younger woman. Such a cliché! He might have had the decency to leave me for a less humiliating reason. But no.' She frowned. 'He had the nerve to say, "If you met her, you'd understand. She's just like you were when you were young."‘

Dora took this in. 'Oh my God!'

‘It was as if he'd used me all up and needed a new one of me.'

‘I'd have murdered him!' Dora was suitably indignant.

‘I would have done if I'd had a weapon handy at the time, but fortunately the moment passed.' Jo chuckled. 'Actually, although I'm still livid when I think about it, I've had quite a lot of fun since I moved on to the barge. It was great being able to start afresh.'

‘I know Karen thought you'd want to stay in the house, where all your friends were.'

‘The trouble is, I didn't have a role any more. Philip wanted the house and the Floosie – that's what me and Karen call her – seemed happy with the idea.'

‘I'm not surprised! It's a lovely house. I have so many happy memories of being there.' Dora thought back tothose early experiments with make-up and weird hair styles, and the little plays she and Karen used to put on. 'Do you remember the soap opera we made with the video camera?'

‘ Pitrevie Drive ? Of course! The tapes are still up in the attic. You two were hysterical.'

‘It was fun. I do miss Karen.'

‘So do I, but I keep reminding myself that she hasn't gone for ever, only for a couple of years.'

‘I bet she wanted to come home when your husband left you!'

‘Of course. I had to tell her I'd never speak to her again if she did, though. I couldn't have her career messed up as well as my life.'

‘You're very strong. I'm sure Mum would have gone to pieces.’

Jo sipped her wine. 'I had my moments, but now I'm a strong, independent woman, with no intention of ever having any sort of relationship again.' She regarded Dora. 'I wouldn't want you never to have another relationship, but you will soon find that having a boyfriend isn't everything.’