I’d obviously been hogging the most attractive man in the room for too long because Marcia came up and asked Pendle if he was all right. Bloody rude, I thought. Then she asked me if I was going to the Old Girls’ reunion in Pavilion Road. I said I wasn’t. Had I seen anything of old Piggy Hesketh. I said I hadn’t. Then I admired her dress, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

‘Laura Ashley, of course,’ she said smugly.

Red-faced flatmates were now staggering in under piles of plates towards a table at the other end of the room.

‘There’s eats whenever you need them,’ she said.

Suddenly there was a lot of shrieking and some rugger types arrived.

‘Oh God,’ said Pendle.

‘I do hope everyone’s going to dance again once they’ve eaten,’ said Marcia. ‘I must go and turn up the vol.’

‘Dust to dust, Laura Ashley to Laura Ashley,’ I intoned, helping myself liberally to a bottle of Cointreau that had been left on the table.

I looked at Pendle again, suddenly deciding I wanted him very much.

‘Who was the person you think I’m exactly like?’ I said.

He was about to tell me when Marcia came roaring over saying she must break us up — like a French loaf — because she terribly wanted Pendle to meet Charles who was a partner in D’Eath and March. Almost at once the lecherous accountant, who’d given up spraying cashews and taken up toast crumbs and pâté, came over and asked me to dance, so I jigged around with him and had another belt of Cointreau to keep up my spirits. Then I had some gin and orange that had been brought by one of the rugger players for his girlfriend. Then one of the rugger players asked me to dance and thrust me around like a cocktail shaker.

‘If you don’t stop, I’ll turn into a White Lady,’ I panted.

Normally I don’t drink much, but Pendle’s presence had jolted me. I knew I was reaching the dangerous stage when suddenly a wicked alter ego emerges making me cast smouldering glances at happily married men, and cannon off groups of people like a shiny red billiard ball. A stockbroker in a flowered scarf kept turning off the lights. I expected to see Pendle’s eyes gleaming in the dark like a cat.