I suppose in the old days, we would have waited for the first editions to come out. We might even have got some sleep. But this is the 24-hour internet age. The news was right there, instantly.

It’s 6 a.m. now, and none of us has been to bed. I’ve read about two hundred different pieces online. I can’t stop. The headlines have been changing every hour, as more bits of news filter in:

Lois is ‘Shoplifter’!!!

ASAs ceremony disrupted

Sage accuses Lois of theft, interrupts awards

Store assistant confirms shoplifting, police ‘pressing no charges as yet’

Sage: I feel betrayed by former friend

And there’s a whole load, just about me.

Witness Becky ‘saw everything’

Becky ‘may testify in court’

Stars fight over bag from stylist Becky

They just go on and on. The most extraordinary one is this one I found on a gossip site:

Becky ‘drank cocktails’ before row, bartender reports

I mean, for God’s sake. What does that have to do with anything? They might as well write, ‘Lois and Sage visited bathroom on day of row.’ They probably will write that.

We’ve all given up saying how bizarre it is. Suze and Tarkie are on the sofa with all the children, eating cornflakes and watching the coverage on E!, which is basically a loop of Sage screaming at Lois and a shot of me looking bewildered. I’ve seen it about forty-seven times. I don’t need to see it any more.

Luke and Aran are in the kitchen, talking grimly. Somehow they persuaded Sage to stop giving interviews, go home and promise to go to bed. Aran delivered her personally into the care of her housekeeper, handed over a huge tip and said, ‘This girl needs to sleep.’ But I bet she’s stayed up all night, too. I bet she loves it.

As for Lois, I have no idea. Her people surrounded her and hustled her out of the place almost instantly. It was like seeing a caged animal again. Every time I think of it my insides squirm with guilt.

‘Want watch Barney!’ Minnie barges into me, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Want watch Barney, not Mummy. Not Mummy,’ she repeats disparagingly.

I suppose it is a bit boring, watching your mother on a loop on the TV when you were hoping for a big purple dinosaur.

‘Come on.’ I lift her up, all cosy in her rabbit dressing gown and slippers. ‘Let’s find you Barney.’

I settle her upstairs, watching Barney on our bed with a bowl of sugar-free spelt puffs. (Totally tasteless but, unbelievably, her favourite snack. She really is becoming a child of LA.) Then I pull back the curtains and do a double-take. There’s a camera crew outside our gates. An actual camera crew! The next minute I hear the entrance buzzer sounding. Someone’s pressing it, over and over. I bolt along the landing and start running down the stairs, but Luke is at the bottom, waiting for me.

‘Don’t answer it!’ he says. ‘Aran will take care of it.’

He shepherds me away from the door, into the kitchen. ‘You’re going to have to keep a very low profile over the next few days,’ he says. ‘Which is boring, but that’s how these things go. We’ll draft a statement and release it mid-morning.’

‘Becky!’ I can hear a man’s faint voice from outside. ‘Becky, we want to offer you an exclusive!’

‘Should I maybe give an interview?’ I turn to Luke. ‘Like, make things clear?’

‘No!’ says Luke, as though the idea is anathema. ‘A statement is enough. We don’t want to feed the frenzy. The more you give them, the more they’ll want. Coffee?’

‘Thanks. I just need to … get my lip gloss …’

I dart into the hall again and run halfway up the stairs. There’s a window from where I can see out to the front, and I peer through the glass. Aran is at the gates, talking to the camera crew. He’s laughing and looks relaxed and even high-fives one of them. I can’t imagine Luke behaving like that.

‘Sorry, guys,’ I hear him say, and then he turns back towards the house. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as.’

‘Aran!’ I say, as the front door opens. ‘What’s going on?’ I walk back down the stairs to talk to him.

‘Oh, nothing much.’ He smiles easily. ‘World’s press descending: same old same old.’

‘And they want to interview me?’

‘They sure do.’

‘What did you say to them?’

‘I said don’t scratch the gates, you miserable bloodsucking low-life.’

I can’t help smiling. Aran seems so relaxed about things. The buzzer sounds again and he peers out of a side window.

‘What do you know,’ he observes. ‘ABC just turned up. This story is going mainstream.’

‘Luke says I should stay inside and ignore them,’ I venture. ‘And we’ll just give out a statement later.’

‘If you want this to go away, that’s the best thing you can do,’ he says, in neutral tones. ‘Totally. Keep your head down and they’ll get bored.’

I can sense a ‘But’ hovering in the air. I look at him questioningly and he shrugs noncommittally.

He’s not going to say a single word more unless I press him, is he? I walk a little way off, in the opposite direction from the kitchen, and wait for Aran to follow me.

‘But?’ I say, and Aran sighs.

‘Becky, you’re Luke’s wife. I’m not here to advise you.’

‘But?’

‘It all depends on what you want. And what Luke wants.’

‘I don’t know what I want,’ I say, confused. ‘I don’t even know what you mean.’

‘OK. Let me explain.’ He seems to marshal his thoughts. ‘I’ve watched you trying to make it in Hollywood as a stylist. Without a whole lot of success, right?’

‘Right,’ I say reluctantly.

‘You know what people need to make it in Hollywood? They need heat. Right now, you have heat. All that attention, that buzz …’ He gestures out to the front. ‘That’s heat. And call me an environmentalist, but I don’t like to see heat go to waste.’

‘Right,’ I nod uncertainly. ‘Me neither.’

‘Whether you like it or not, getting ahead in this place isn’t about talent or hard work. OK, maybe ten per cent is talent.’ He spreads his hands. ‘The other ninety per cent is catching a lucky break. So here’s your choice. You can see last night as a weird little moment to hush up and move on from … or you can see it as the luckiest break you ever caught.’ He focuses on me, his eyes suddenly intense. ‘Becky, last night was Providence giving you a fastpass. You can jump to the head of the line if you want to. You can go the distance. Do you want to?’

I stare back, utterly mesmerized by his words. I can jump to the head of the line? Go the distance? Why on earth wouldn’t I want to do that?

‘Yes!’ I stutter. ‘Of course I do! But— but what do you mean, exactly? What should I do?’

‘We can make a plan. We can use this heat. But you have to know what you’re getting into. You have to be prepared to see it through.’

‘You mean, use the media?’ I say hesitantly. ‘Do interviews?’

‘Channel the energy, is all I’m saying. Your profile just went through the roof, but the world knows you as Becky Brandon, Witness to a Shoplifting. How about if you transformed that into Becky Brandon, Celebrity Stylist? Becky Brandon, Hollywood’s fashion maven. Becky Brandon, the go-to girl for a great look. We can brand you any way we like.’

I stare back at him, too dazzled to speak. Brand? Celebrity stylist? Me?

‘You know that bag you picked out is all over the internet?’ he adds. ‘Do you realize how hot you are right now? And if it goes to court, they’ll be all over you. You’ll be the star witness and, believe me, the world will be watching.’

I feel a fresh tingle of excitement. Star witness! I’ll have to have a whole new wardrobe! I’ll wear little Jackie O suits every day. And I’ll straighten my hair. No, I’ll put my hair up. Yes! Maybe I could have a different style every day, and people will call me The Girl with the Amazing Up-dos, and—

‘Are you starting to realize what you have here?’ Aran interrupts my thoughts. ‘People would kill for this exposure.’

‘Yes, but …’ I try to calm my whirling thoughts. ‘What do I do? Now? Today?’

‘Well.’ Aran sounds suddenly more businesslike. ‘We sit down and we make a plan. I can pull in some colleagues, you’ll need an agent …’

‘Stop!’ I say, as reality suddenly swoops in. ‘This is all too fast.’ I lower my voice a little. ‘Don’t you understand, everything you’re saying, it’s the exact opposite of what Luke was saying. He wants it all to go away.’

‘Sure.’ Aran nods. ‘Becky, what you have to remember is, Luke doesn’t see you as a client. He sees you as his wife. He’s very protective of you and Minnie. Of course he is. Me? I see everyone as a client. Or potential client.’ He grins. ‘We can discuss that later.’

The buzzer sounds again and I jump.

‘Leave it,’ says Aran. ‘Let them wait.’

‘So, what will all this mean for Sage?’

‘Sage!’ He gives a short bark of a laugh. ‘If that girl goes any further off the rails she’ll find herself in the ravine. She’ll be OK. We’ll haul her back on track, Luke and I. She’ll kick and scream and it won’t be pretty. But then, nothing about Sage is. Except her face. When she’s been in make-up,’ he adds. ‘You don’t want to see her before that.’ He grimaces. ‘Brutal.’

‘Rubbish!’ I give a shocked giggle. ‘She’s beautiful!’

‘If you say so.’ He raises his slanty eyebrows comically.

He’s so irreverent and so unruffled. It’s like he’s enjoying all of this. I gaze at him, trying to work him out.

‘You don’t seem as angry about all this as Luke. Hasn’t Sage messed up your strategy?’

‘Quite possibly. But I like a challenge.’ He shrugs. ‘Stars are like any other investment. May go up, may go down.’