‘Hence the chaos,’ said Frances, gesturing at the room.

‘It must be hard for you,’ I said. ‘Were you close?’

‘When you work together the way we did, you have to be close.’ She grimaced. ‘For better or worse. She wasn’t exactly…’

Frances stopped herself. I wondered what she’d been going to say. What wasn’t Milena? I wanted to ask what she had been like, but I was supposed to know that. So instead I nodded and said, ‘Yes,’ in an I-know-just-what-you-mean kind of way.

The door was flung open and Beth tottered in, carrying a tray on which there were a cafetière, two mugs, a milk jug, a bowl of sugar lumps and a plate of biscuits. As she approached she stepped on a file and stumbled. She tried to keep control but disaster was inevitable, as in the seconds after a building has been dynamited from beneath. There was a moment of quiet and then it got noisy and messy. The cafetière banged on to the wooden boards and exploded, sending arcs of coffee everywhere; the jug shattered and a river of milk ran across the floor towards Frances; the mugs broke on impact and shards skidded across the room; sugar lumps bounced up at surprising angles.

‘Fuck,’ said Beth, from the floor. ‘Oh, fuck and fuck.’

‘Are you hurt?’ said Frances. She didn’t seem particularly surprised, just very, very tired.

‘Sorry,’ said Beth, scrambling to her feet with an expression of almost comical surprise. ‘It’s a bit of a mess, isn’t it?’

‘Let me help,’ I said.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Frances.

I took Beth’s arm.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Show me where your cleaning stuff is.’

‘Would you? That’s really kind. There’s a mop in the tall cupboard in the kitchen, paper towels in a dispenser, and a dustpan and brush under the sink.’

We went upstairs into the long kitchen that smelt of coffee and fresh-baked bread. When we returned, Frances was on the phone, protesting about something. When she’d hung up, she took off her glasses to rub her eyes.

‘Trouble at work?’ I laid wads of kitchen towel over the puddles of milk and coffee and started to pick up pieces of glass and china and drop them into a bag. Beth hovered round me, avoiding broken china.

‘What I need,’ said Frances, ‘is the world to stop for about a week while I get the backlog sorted out and my life in some kind of order. Milena – may she rest in peace – wasn’t the most organized of women. I keep discovering things she’s done or promised that there’s no record of. At least,’ she glanced round the room, ‘no record that I can lay my hands on.’ She watched me as I picked up the sugar lumps one by one, swept up the biscuit crumbs, picked up the mass of sodden kitchen roll and dumped it in a bin-bag. ‘You shouldn’t be doing this.’

‘I quite like clearing up mess,’ I said. ‘With your work, though, you should chunk it up. You can’t clear it all at once. Maybe you should get extra help in, for the time being at least.’

‘I can’t do any more,’ said Beth, grumpily.

‘I wouldn’t expect you to,’ said Frances.

I gathered some loose sheets of paper from the floor. ‘What do you want me to do with these?’

‘Nothing. You’ve done more than enough as it is. I’ll sort them out later.’

‘I can put them into piles for you, if you want. I’m quite good at organizing stuff.’

‘I couldn’t possibly ask you to do that.’

‘You’re not asking. I’m offering. I’m not doing anything right now. I’m…’ I hesitated… ‘between jobs.’

‘You’d do that?’ For a moment she looked as though she was about to burst into tears or hug me.

‘Just to sort this lot out. After all, it wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t offered me coffee.’

Beth pottered around to not very much effect while Frances and I sorted the papers: venues, catering companies that Party Animals used, parties being planned, quotations. There was nothing that gave me any hint of the personal life of Milena Livingstone, although there were papers with her dashingly scrawled signature, and Frances referred to the dozens of sympathy letters she’d received and hadn’t yet replied to.

Beth made coffee in a jug and brought it in mug by mug, with an air of triumph. I felt strangely, absurdly relaxed, even though I was there under false pretences. It was a relief to be helping someone instead of being the one in need. Maybe it also felt good to have a holiday from being me, the grieving widow and ‘betrayed wife’, pitied friend with a great big bee in her bonnet. When the time came for me to go, Frances, seeming slightly embarrassed but also a bit desperate, asked if there was any chance I could pop back. I replied, trying to sound casual, that I’d be glad to help out and suggested the next day.

‘Yes, great,’ said Frances. ‘Oh, Lord, that’s amazing. You’re my saviour. I was on the point of – Hang on, I don’t even know your name.’

And I answered, without a beat, ‘Gwen. Gwen Abbott.’

Chapter Twelve

As soon as I arrived home, I looked up Gwen’s name in the phone book. It wasn’t there, probably because she teaches maths in a secondary school. If her name was in the book her phone would never stop ringing: what’s the homework for tomorrow? I can’t do question three. Why did my child fail his exam? And, now, baffling messages from the party-organizing company she didn’t know she worked for.

Then I looked up Hugo Livingstone and, before I could stop myself, punched in his number. On the second ring it was answered by a woman with a strong Eastern European accent.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Could I speak to Hugo Livingstone?’

‘He’s not here.’

‘When would be a good time to call back?’

‘He will be away for many days. He is in America.’

‘Oh. Sorry to have troubled you.’

I put a baking potato into the oven, poured myself a glass of wine and then another as I thought about what I had done. Had I committed a crime? I didn’t think so. As long as I wasn’t doing it to perpetrate a fraud or theft, I couldn’t actually be arrested. Was that right?

Was I being dishonest? Well, obviously.

Was it morally wrong to give a false name, and not just a false name, a name that belonged to somebody else, in fact, to one of my best friends? But, then, borrowing a name wasn’t like borrowing a sweater without asking. I wasn’t depriving Gwen of it. I wasn’t going to damage it or get it dirty. I had misled Frances and Beth. But if I had been open about who I was, they might have thought I was insane. Which brought me to the question…

Was I insane? Or had I just done an insane thing? Or both? Or neither? And if I was insane, could I myself tell – from the inside, as it were?

After an hour or so, I took the baked potato out of the oven and mashed it with lots of butter, then sprinkled it with salt and pepper. I ate the soft inside first, then the crunchy skin. It was delicious. The phone rang.

‘Where the hell are you?’ Mary said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re coming here for dinner,’ she said.

‘Am I?’

‘I asked you several days ago. You said yes.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘We’re all about to sit down.’

‘All?’

‘There are seven of us. Or, rather, there will be when you get here.’

‘Ten minutes,’ I said. ‘Fifteen at the most.’

I was absolutely sure Mary hadn’t asked me. On the other hand, such was the chaos of my life, the fact that I was absolutely sure didn’t necessarily mean she hadn’t asked me. Every impulse in my mind and body was screaming at me not to go. What I really wanted was a bath, bed and hours of heavy, dreamless sleep. What was more I had already eaten a solid meal and drunk several glasses of wine. I cursed obscenely and loudly as I had a thirty-second shower, pulled on a dress and ruffled my hair in the hope that it would look artfully arranged. I put a coat on, ran out of the house and got a taxi at the end of the road.