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finished her drink. ‘Velda’s been more of a mum to me than she ever was.’
    â€˜Have you stayed in contact?’ Harriet asked carefully.
    This was clearly a difficult subject for Saffron. Her eyes had become flat, and the spark had gone from her voice. She shrugged. ‘She came to visit once, and it was such a disaster I told her never to come back again. She phoned a few times after that, but you could tell she was only doing it because she thought she had to.’ She gave a sarcastic smile. ‘The phone calls stopped, too. I guess I wasn’t worth making the effort for.’
    â€˜I’m sure that’s not true,’ Harriet started to say, but Saffron cut her off.
    â€˜Honestly H, it’s cool. I’m over it now. I haven’t got a clue where she is or what she’s doing, and I like it that way. Can we talk about something else? This is boring. Tell me about where you live, instead. Christchurch or something, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Churchminster. It’s a little village in the Cotswolds,’ said Harriet.
    Saffron finished her drink. ‘I’ve never been out that way.’ She laughed. ‘I’m not much of a country girl.’
    â€˜You might like it,’ said Harriet. ‘It really is a wonderful place. A lot more goes on in the country than you might think.’
    Saffron smiled. ‘Muddy wellies and ruddy-faced farmers? Not really my thing.’
    Harriet noticed her empty glass. ‘I’ll get these,’ she said and went off to the bar.
    By the time she returned, Saffron had company. ‘H!’ she said. ‘I’ve just bumped into some mates. Trey, Damien, this is Harriet Fraser. We work together at
Soirée
.’
    The short, skinny man sitting in Harriet’s seat glanced up. Even though he looked about forty, he was dressed like a teenager: in ridiculously baggy jeans with a chain hanging off them, and an oversized T-shirt over his skinny frame. His rat-like eyes cast themselves over Harriet, unimpressed.
    â€˜Delighted,’ he said in a mockney accent, sounding anything but.
    â€˜Trey’s a photographer, he’s just done a major advertising campaign with Elizabeth Jagger,’ said Saffron. ‘And Damien works for a record label.’
    A younger man in his mid-twenties, with a shaved eyebrow and a trilby hat, raised his hand un-enthusiastically. ‘Word.’
    â€˜I was just telling the guys about this new bar I’ve discovered in Hoxton,’ said Saffron. Harriet had vaguely heard of the place, it was somewhere really trendy like east London. As the three of them sat there talking about bass lines and dry ice, it sounded as exotic and faraway to Harriet as Zanzibar. Seeing as Trey clearly wasn’t going to give her seat back, she went off in search of a stool.
    Twenty minutes later, Harriet had had enough. Despite Saffron’s repeated attempts to draw her into the conversation, Trey and Damien had barely said two words to her. At last the two men got up to go and play on the fruit machine.
    â€˜What do you think of Trey? He’s just finished with his girlfriend. I think you could be in there!’ whispered Saffron loudly.
    Harriet tried to be diplomatic. ‘He’s not really my type. And I definitely don’t think I’m his.’
    â€˜Who cares about a type! You just need a shag. Trey told me he’s looking for a bit of action.’
    Harriet thought about her bikini line, which was looking more overgrown than Hampstead Heath after a year’s worth of fertilizer.
    â€˜Well . . .’
    â€˜When did you last have a cock up you?’ Saffron demanded.
    Harriet looked sheepish. She had lost her virginity late in life to a braying idiot called Horse, and despite a few nights of sweating, sand-filled passion with a Canadian kayaking instructor in Thailand, there had been nothing – or no one – since. Suddenly, an alarming image of herself as an