Then they all talked about President Carter, Mrs Thatcher, Laura Ashley, and the latest biography by Antonia Fraser, which everyone seemed to have read except me. I know one should try to look vivacious at parties when one’s stuck with boring people. Attractive men are always supposed to think what fun you look and come over and introduce themselves; but the man in the charcoal grey suit was showing no signs of approaching me, and any minute I’d be buried alive in cashew nuts. The flatmate came round with the sausages. I drew her aside.

‘Who’s the man in the grey suit?’

Her face brightened. ‘Oh, isn’t he lovely? He’s called Pendle, Pendle Mulholland.’

‘I bet he made that up.’

‘He’s quite capable of it,’ she said. ‘Marcia invited him. She says he’s absolutely brilliant. Evidently he was called to the Bar younger than anyone else in years.’

‘He ought to be called to the bar more often,’ I said crossly. ‘He hasn’t touched his drink. It might make him more jolly.’

I’m a trier at parties, so I chatted up all the draggy men and danced around to the record player, but I was conscious all the time of this Pendle man watching me like a cat.

Perhaps the fruit salad was more potent than I’d thought, because I finally went up to him and said, ‘Why don’t you have another drink and look a bit more jolly?’

‘There isn’t any whisky,’ he said, ‘and the local wine’s a bit too vigorous for me, although it’s done wonders for that plant.’ He pointed to a mauve chrysanthemum in a pot on the table. ‘It was quite dead when I arrived.’

I giggled and took another sip at my drink.

‘I can’t place the tangy flavour,’ I said.

‘Vim probably. Marcia mixed it in the wash basin. You must have the constitution of an ox,’ he added as I drained the glass.

‘I’m after the cherry,’ I said. ‘I hear you’re a solicitor.’