And now suddenly everything makes sense. Robert’s suspicious frown. Mrs Kendrick’s anxious, defensive manner. Everything.

‘So you are going to shut us down and build condos.’ I blurt the thought out before I can stop myself and Robert gives me a long look.

‘Is that what you’ve been expecting?’ he says at last.

‘Well, are you?’ I challenge him and there’s a long silence. My stomach is becoming heavy with foreboding. This is feeling like a real threat. I don’t know what to worry about first: Mrs Kendrick, the art collection, the volunteers, the patrons, or my job. OK, I’ll admit it, it’s my job. I may not have as big as income as Dan does – but we need it.

‘Maybe,’ says Robert at last. ‘I won’t pretend it’s not an option. But it’s not the only option. I would love this place to work. The whole family would. But …’

He gestures around the office, and I can suddenly see the situation from his point of view. An old-fashioned, idiosyncratic yet successful charity is one thing. An old-fashioned, idiosyncratic failing money-pit is something else.

‘We can save it,’ I say, trying to sound robust. ‘It has stacks of potential. We can turn it around.’

‘That’s a good attitude,’ says Robert. ‘But we need more than that. We need practical, solid ideas to start the cash flow. Your erotica exhibition might be a start,’ he adds to me. ‘That’s the first good idea I’ve heard in this place.’

‘Erotica exhibition?’ Clarissa gapes at me.

I try to backtrack. ‘It was only a thought.’

‘I found Sylvie conducting some pretty thorough research on erotic images,’ puts in Robert. He sounds so deadpan that I glance up at him in suspicion – and instantly know: he saw the ‘boudoir photos’ on my screen. All thirty of them.

Great.

‘Well.’ I clear my throat. ‘I like to do things thoroughly.’

‘Evidently.’ His eyebrows raise, and I hastily look away. I fumble in my pocket for my lip-balm case, and pretend to be engrossed in that. It was Dan who gave me my pink leather lip-balm case, because I am, truthfully, addicted to lip balm. (Which, if Toby is correct, is due to evil Big Pharma. I must google that, one day. Maybe there’ll be some class action suit and we’ll all win millions.)

‘P.S.’ Robert reads aloud the gold-embossed letters on my lip-balm case. ‘Why P.S.?’

‘It stands for “Princess Sylvie”,’ says Clarissa brightly. ‘That’s Sylvie’s nickname.’

I feel an instant surge of embarrassment. Why did she have to blab that little detail?

‘“Princess Sylvie”?’ echoes Robert in an amused tone that flicks me on the raw.

‘It’s just my husband’s nickname for me,’ I say quickly. ‘It’s silly. It’s … nothing.’

‘Princess Sylvie,’ repeats Robert, as though I haven’t spoken. He surveys me for a few moments. I can feel his eyes running over my sprigged silk top and my pearl necklace and waist-length blonde hair. Then he nods his head. ‘Yup.’

‘Yup’? What does he mean, yup? I want to know. But I also want not to know. So I say, ‘How long have we got? I mean, when will you make a decision about Willoughby House?’

Even as I’m speaking, my thoughts are circling uneasily. What would I do if I lost my job? Where would I apply? I haven’t even looked to see what’s out there at the moment. I haven’t wanted to. I’ve been safe in my haven.

‘I don’t know,’ says Robert. ‘Let’s see what you come up with. Maybe you’ll perform a miracle.’

But he sounds unconvinced. He’s probably mentally choosing kitchen fittings for his luxury condos already. I see him glancing at our hand-drawn home page again, his eyes expressionless, and feel a fresh wave of mortification.

‘You know, we have tried to modernize,’ I say. ‘But Mrs Kendrick just wouldn’t do it.’

‘I’m afraid my aunt has the commercial nous of a teapot,’ says Robert flatly. ‘That’s not your fault, but it hasn’t helped matters.’

‘Where is Mrs Kendrick?’ asks Clarissa timidly, and Robert’s face creases slightly. I can’t tell if he’s amused or exasperated.

‘She’s hired a full-time computer teacher.’

‘What?’ I exclaim before I can stop myself – and I can see Clarissa’s jaw has dropped. ‘What’s she learning, exactly?’ I add, and Robert’s face creases again. I think he wants to laugh.

‘I was there when he arrived,’ he says. ‘She said, “Young man, I wish to be modern.”’

I feel simultaneously amused and chastened. Mrs Kendrick has been more proactive than any of us. If I’d known things were this bad, I wouldn’t have sat here defending our non-existent website and our quirky charming ways. I would have …

What, exactly?

I bite my lip, trying to think. I’m not sure yet. I need to get on top of this, quickly. I need to have ideas. If Mrs Kendrick can modernize, we all can.

Toby, I think suddenly. I’ll ask Toby, he’ll know.

‘So that’s my aunt’s contribution to the situation.’ Robert surveys first Clarissa, then me. ‘What about you? Any specific ideas other than erotica?’

‘Well.’ I rack my brains feverishly. ‘Obviously the website is an issue.’

‘We all know that,’ says Robert heavily. ‘Anything else?’

‘We need a decent sign outside.’ I pluck an old, buried thought out of my brain. ‘People walk past the house and have no idea what it is. We did try to suggest it to Mrs Kendrick, but—’

‘I can imagine.’ Robert rolls his eyes.

‘And we could do something creative?’ I’m feeling my way now. ‘Like … a podcast set in Willoughby House? A ghost story?’

‘A ghost story.’ He looks quizzical. ‘Are you going to write a ghost story?’

‘Well, OK … probably not,’ I allow. ‘We’d have to get someone to do it.’

‘How much income would it generate? Or publicity?’

‘I don’t know,’ I admit, losing faith in the idea even as I’m talking. ‘But it’s just the first idea of many. Many, many ideas,’ I reiterate, as though to reassure myself.

‘Good,’ says Robert, sounding unconvinced. ‘I look forward to your many ideas.’

‘Great.’ I try to sound bullish. ‘Well … you’ll be impressed.’

NINE

Everything’s got so stressful. It’s three days later, and I’ve just about had enough. Why is life like this? Just as you relax and start enjoying yourself, smiling, having fun … life looms up like a mean teacher in the playground, shouting, ‘Playtime is over!’ and everyone trails off to be miserable and bored again.

Dan is constantly strained but he won’t tell me why. He got home at midnight the other night and smelled of whisky. He sits gazing into the snake tank quite a lot, and his default expression has become a frown.

I joked yesterday morning, ‘Don’t worry, only another sixty-seven years and fifty weeks to go,’ and he just looked up blankly as though he didn’t get it. Then, when I said more gently, ‘Come on, Dan, what’s the matter?’ he sprang up and left the room, replying, ‘Nothing,’ over his shoulder.

How many divorces are caused by the word ‘nothing’? I think this would be a very interesting statistic. When Dan says, ‘Nothing,’ I get this jab of total frusture, like a little twisty knife. Frusture is my word for the exquisite fury that only your husband can give you. Not only are you furious, you feel like he’s doing it all on purpose, in order to torment you.

I raised this theory with Dan, once. I was – in hindsight – a bit stressed out. The babies had been up all night, in my defence. And I yelled, ‘Do you deliberately find the most annoying thing to say to me, Dan? Is this your plan?’ Whereupon he looked all hunted and said, ‘No. I don’t know. I wasn’t quite following what you said. You look really nice in that dress.’

Which kind of appeased me and didn’t appease me, all at once. I mean, I had gone off-topic. I will admit that. I sometimes do. But couldn’t he see that our holiday plans and the problem with the recycling bins and his mother’s birthday present was all the same issue?

(Also, it wasn’t a dress, it was a nondescript breastfeeding tunic top that I’d worn fifty times before. So how on earth could he say I looked nice in it?)

Probably we should have agendas for our arguments. Probably we should decide to have an argument every Thursday evening and buy in snacks and hire a mediator. We should take ownership of the arguing process. But until we do, we’re stuck with Dan saying ‘nothing’ and me seething and the air all crackly with static resentment.

Anyway, I’m hoping my boudoir pictures will change everything. Or change some things, at least.

Meanwhile, the office is pretty stressful, too. Robert has been hanging around every day, going through figures and files and basically insulting everything we’ve ever done. He isn’t scary, exactly, but he’s businesslike. He asks short, brusque questions. He expects short, brusque answers. Poor Clarissa can’t cope at all, and communicates in whispers. I’m more resilient – but doesn’t he realize? We don’t make the big decisions. It wasn’t our idea to commission a special Willoughby House Christmas Pudding last year as a gift to supporters (total loss: £379), it was Mrs Kendrick’s.

Shamed by Mrs Kendrick’s positive and adaptable attitude, I’ve done some research on websites and online shops and all the things I think we should be doing. I’ve spent every waking moment trying to think of creative ideas other than a ghost story podcast. (The trouble is, once you try to have an idea, they all fly away.) I’ve also been round to see Toby, but he wasn’t in, so I emailed him and haven’t heard back yet.

Meanwhile, Mummy keeps phoning me about the opening ceremony. She’s nearly as bad as Esme, with her endless questions. Today she wanted to know: 1. What colour shoes should she wear? And 2. How will she remember everyone’s name? (Answers: 1. No one will be looking at her shoes and 2. name badges.) Esme, on the other hand, wanted to know: 3. Do I require a radio microphone? And 4. What kind of snacks would I like in the ‘green room area’? (Answers: 3. I’m really not bothered and 4. a bowl of M&M’s with all the blue ones taken out. Joke.)