‘You’re not hungover?’ You drank just as much as me.’ ‘The moment I got in I drank two raw eggs with Tabasco sauce,’ says Elizabeth. Joyce nods. ‘I ate some wedding cake, then had a Baileys.’

What use am I? I’m not going to discover Nick Silver’s code. Some women make history, and some women make tea. I will never be Elizabeth.

But Elizabeth has hung up, and the familiar, business-like rudeness of that gesture brings a huge grin to Donna’s face.

You just have to understand each other’s rhythms, don’t you? Time to let Elizabeth take charge for a bit.

She had us all around for piña coladas, and Ron woke up in a hedge at two in the morning. One of the fox cubs was curled up on his tummy.

Is this how it is from here on? Should he just accept it? To the family he looked after for so many years – as provider, protector, barbecue chef, turkey carver and chief rabble rouser – he’s now the old man on the comfy chair in the corner? That’s where they are?

And, to be honest, the silence suited her this morning: she was quite surprised at the ferocity of her hangover. You shouldn’t still be allowed to get hangovers at eighty years old, there should be some sort of law.

But then the computers all started talking to each other, and, before you knew it, your phone started talking to your computer, and your fridge started talking to your phone, and you willingly paid for a device that recorded everything you said and sent it to a server farm in the middle of the Nevada desert, just because it was easier than

Donna longs to be patronized and dismissed by Elizabeth once more. Bogdan