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Minimalism. That’s the look I’ll have to say I was going for.

Clean lines, a sense of space, the total absence of clutter.

All of which are actually perfectly sensible ways to keep your living space, especially if, like me, you’re a designer by profession. It’s just that in my particular case, the sense of space and total absence of clutter in this, my brand-new flat, are less to do with any creative sensibility and more because of the fact that my last flat was roughly the size of a broom cupboard. So I barely own any furniture. The handful of furnishings I do own, which used to make the old place feel over-stuffed and faintly claustrophobic, barely even make a dent here in the new one.

And, to be honest, it’s not the worst thing in the world to pretend that all this empty space is a Design Statement rather than a mundane necessity. In half an hour’s time my investor, Ben, who’s just flown into London for a couple of days, is dropping round for a meeting. Bringing his BFF Elvira with him.

Elvira being Elvira Roberts-Hoare: ex-model, bohemian aristocrat, Ben’s chief talent scout and also, as of yesterday, my brand-new landlord.

I mean, her own flat, just a short distance away in South Kensington, is practically a museum to her incredible vintage fashion archive, with Ferragamo shoes displayed in a custom-made Perspex sideboard and Alexander McQueen scarves draped artfully over the soft furnishings. I know this not because I’ve ever been invited, obviously, but because I saw it in all its glory in a recent issue of Elle Decor magazine. My own attempts at turning this gorgeous flat into something worthy of Elle Decor are being seriously hampered by the fact that I don’t have an incredible vintage fashion archive to display like artwork. And, even if I did, it would be let down by my crappy and – as I’ve already said – paltry furnishings: a futon, an IKEA wardrobe, a glass coffee table and – last but absolutely not least – a huge and ancient Chesterfield sofa upholstered in apricot-coloured rose fabric and smelling of damp dog.

Actually, now that I look at it, the mere presence of the Chesterfield, in all its chintzy, overblown glory, is a bit of a strike against my claims that I’m deliberately styling this place in a minimalist fashion.

Though I’m also being hamstrung by the fact that my sister Cass showed up ten minutes ago and is somehow, in her own inimitable way, cluttering up the place. Handbag slung on the floor, tea sloshing out of her mug, and just generally sort of filling the room up with herself.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ she’s shrieking now, peering down at her phone, and splashing yet more tea on the floor beside her. ‘Zoltan’s ex has been speaking to the Mirror. It’s all over their website.’

This, by the way, is the latest in the long-running series of Massive Dramas that make up Cass’s lifehsq. A week ago, my little sister was outed for the three-month-long affair she’s been having with a Premiership footballer. A married Premiership footballer, to be more precise. And while I may be wearily familiar with her nasty little habit of getting involved with married men, this particular married man’s wife was not. The whole thing came as such a horrible shock to the poor woman, in fact, that she bodily threw her cheating scumbag of a husband out of their home and went on a rant on Mumsnet – a rant that was then picked up by the Daily Mail … The rest, as they say, is history.

It’s even made its sordid way into this week’s OK! magazine, a copy of which Cass brandished at me, with something disturbingly close to triumph, when she showed up at my door. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure that triumphantly brandishing a copy of OK! was the reason she showed up at my door in the first place. It certainly wasn’t to help me get my flat ready for my impending visitors.

‘I don’t know if it’s all that fair, Cass,’ I say, ‘for you to be the one talking about having no shame.’

Though frankly I don’t know why I bother continuing to express my disapproval over Cass’s extramarital shenanigans. It’s not like she’s paid the slightest bit of attention to me at any other time in the last three years. Her relationship with Zoltan – a Charlton Athletic defender and member of Bulgaria’s national team – is coming hot on the heels of her last married boyfriend, Vile Dave. (I called him Vile Dave, by the way, in my head; it wasn’t like that was actually his name, or anything.)

And, as I expected, she ignores me.

‘Isn’t there anyone I can complain to?’ she asks, dramatically. ‘Some sort of – I don’t know – union, or something?’

‘A union for women who’ve been sleeping with other women’s husbands?’

‘No!’ she says. ‘I meant someone to complain to about the constant press intrusion!’ Then she thinks about this for a moment. ‘Is there a union for women who’ve been sleeping with other women’s husbands, though? Because even if my situation is a bit unusual, me being a celebrity, and all that … if there was somewhere I could get some expert advice …?’

My sister (half-sister, if we’re being really specific, and on occasions like this, I have to say, I find myself emphasizing the half part) has her own reality TV show, Considering Cassidy. Hence her ‘celebrity’ status. Hence, I guess, the reason she’s made it into a quarter-page snippet in the OK! that’s now lying on my coffee table, with Prince Albert of Monaco and his lovely blonde wife Charlene smiling rather fixedly at me from the cover.

‘I honestly don’t think there’s a union for that, Cass,’ I say, firmly. ‘Now, look, if you don’t mind, lovely though it is for you to have dropped round to see my new flat …’

‘Oh, well done, Libby,’ she pouts, with a swish of her hair and another swill of her tea everywhere. ‘Nice way to drop your swanky new Notting Hill pad into the conversation.’

‘I wasn’t doing anything of the sort! Besides, it’s not my swanky new Notting Hill pad.’ I feel the need to point this out to Cass, partly because it all still feels a bit surreal to me myself. ‘I’m only living here because I’m renting the studio below.’

And because, despite the extremely hefty discount Elvira Roberts-Hoare is giving me on the rent of the ground-floor studio that Ben wanted me to start working out of – the posh address and upmarket surroundings making it ideal to use as a showroom – I still can’t afford to pay that and to rent somewhere else to actually live in as well.

But still, Cass is right about one thing. This side street, a little to the north of Notting Hill, is a hell of a lot swankier than anywhere else I’ve ever lived. And this flat is a hell of a lot swankier, too: a bit jumbled-up, with the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom crammed up on the top floor and this, the living room, here in the middle, but I’m never going to complain about that. I’m living here, in a particularly gorgeous bit of Zone One, pretty much for free. Sure, I have no security on the place, and Elvira can throw me out tomorrow if she decides to find a new, proper tenant, but it’s worth it for the sheer joy of living somewhere – anywhere – that doesn’t rumble every time a tube train passes underneath it and doesn’t have eye-wateringly pungent aromas wafting up from the takeaways below.

For the sheer joy of living and working somewhere this … fabulous.

‘You know, I had a personal trainer that worked in a private gym on this same road a couple of years ago, when I was getting in shape for Strictly. Or rather,’ Cass adds, bitterly, ‘when Mum led me to believe that I was in with a shot of getting Strictly.’ She’s perched her perfectly plump posterior on the arm of my Chesterfield. ‘I should probably go and start training there again and get in amazing shape, if I’m going to end up splashed all over the tabloids every five minutes.’

‘I’m sure they’ll lose interest soon,’ I say.

‘God, I hope so,’ she says, unconvincingly. ‘I mean, sure, in the olden days, I’ve never minded press intrusion. But this is different. My priorities are different now. I’m a mother.’

‘Cass. You’re not a mother.’

‘I am! I mean, Zoltan has two children, you know! Daughters! And if I end up marrying him …’

‘You’ve only been with him three months!’

‘… I’ll be their brand-new stepmother. Which, obviously, is going to be amazing. I mean, I’ve wanted to be a mother for, like, soooo long …’

I stop trying to arrange the sinfully expensive flowers I bought from a posh shop up the road, and stare at her. ‘Really?’

‘… but this way, I get to do the fun part without having to go through all the really shit stuff, too. You know, getting fat, and all that.’

‘Pregnant, Cass. Not fat. Pregnant.’

‘Well, you say that, Libby, but when I saw those christening photos of Nora, she looked absolutely massive! And that was, like, at least two months after she’d had the baby, right?’

‘It was four months,’ I say, defensively, because the Nora of whom Cass is speaking is my best friend of almost twenty years. I was the chief bridesmaid at her wedding last summer. I’m godmother to her eight-month-old daughter, Clara, for Christ’s sake. ‘And she didn’t look fat, she looked amazing.’

‘Yeah, well, either way, I’m not going to take the risk. Anyway, it’s not just the getting-fat thing. Little children cry, and they make a mess of stuff, and you’re really tired at night so you only get to have sex, like, three times a week and stuff … But then they get to, like, six, or nine or … well, whatever age Zoltan’s kids are … well, they’re just super-easy by then! You just hang out, and do really cute mother-daughter stuff like … talk about whatever boy bands they fancy, and …’ Inspiration clearly runs dry for a moment. ‘I don’t know … go for spa days?’

‘I don’t think nine year olds are really into spa days, to be honest with you.’

‘Well, I was. I had a lovely spa weekend with Mum for my ninth birthday!’

‘When I was thirteen …? I don’t remember us going to a spa with Mum that young.’

‘Oh, it was probably a weekend when you were at your dad’s, or something … Hey, I remember now! I think we told you she was taking me to an audition for Doctor Who.’

‘I remember that!’ Especially as I was no longer a regular weekend guest at my dad’s by then, which still didn’t stop him leaving me home alone with a box-set of Humphrey Bogart videos so that he could go out with some new girlfriend all afternoon on Saturday and most of Sunday. I made cheese sandwiches (partly because that was all I knew how to make and partly because cheese and bread was all there was in the flat) and fell asleep on the floor in front of the TV because there was a creepy old walk-in closet in the spare room and I was too scared to sleep there in case someone was hiding in it and crept out of it in the middle of the night. ‘Anyway, look, Cass, can we talk about all this – your, er, new role as a stepmother – another time, please?’

‘Why? You’re not busy, are you?’

‘Yes!’ Has she completely missed everything I’ve been doing while she’s been wittering on? ‘I’ve told you! Ben and Elvira are getting here for a meeting any minute now!’

‘Oh, yeah, right. Though you do know, don’t you, that there’s nothing you can really do, right now, to make the place look decent enough to impress Elvira Thingy-Doodah?’ Cass casts a disparaging glance around the room, then wrinkles her nose as she peers down at the sofa. ‘God, Libby, are you still so hard up that you can’t afford something a bit better than this? You could get one for literally a hundred and fifty quid at IKEA!’

‘I know. I like this one.’

She pulls a face. ‘Then I can’t help you. Anyway, you’re the one who has to convince this Elvira woman that you’re not about to infest her entire apartment with bedbugs, or whatever the hell is lurking in here.’

‘Nothing’s lurking in there,’ I say. ‘Bedbugs or … anyone else.’

‘Anything.’

‘Right. Yes. Of course. But seriously, Cass, I do need to get ready …’

‘Fine. I’ll go.’ She gets to her feet, tottering a bit on the five-inch heels that she considers mandatory for an average day out and about. ‘I’ve got to get to the hospital to see Mum.’

Early this morning, Mum had her gallstones out at a private hospital near Harley Street. No, scratch that: she had minor cosmetic surgery. Or rather, this is what she’s insisting on telling people, because gallstones are far too unglamorous a condition for my mother. She’d rather everyone thought she was having a face-lift or a nose job, evidently, than that they knew she had ugly old gallstones rattling around inside her.

As far as I knew, she’d banned me and Cass from visiting until tomorrow, when she’d be feeling sufficiently recovered to drape a bed jacket over her shoulders and hold court. But apparently Cass is exempt from this condition.

‘You’re seeing her today?’ I ask.

‘Yeah, she asked me to pop along if I was free. Why? Are you not going to make it today at all?’

‘No! I thought she didn’t want us there.’

‘Oh. Well, maybe it was just you she didn’t want there. Or,’ Cass goes on, generously trying to find a way to make this sound less harsh, ‘maybe it was just that she does want me rather than not wanting you, if you see what I mean.’

‘Well, tell her I’ll come along to visit tomorrow, as summonsed,’ I say, pointedly. ‘If she can find the time in her packed schedule to fit me in, that is.’

But Cass isn’t paying that much attention. She’s peering into the mirror by the door and getting her makeup bag out of her handbag to perfect her appearance – a few trowel-loads of blusher, an ocean of lipgloss and a small tidal wave of mascara – just in case she’s papped en route to the hospital, I guess. Then she’s off, with the briefest of waves in my direction, giving me a grand total of ten minutes to put my own makeup on, get into my chosen outfit, and head downstairs to the studio/showroom to assemble the pieces I want to show Ben and Elvira at our meeting.

I mean, it really does have to go well today. It has to.

The thing is that when Ben helicoptered in, this time last year, and put forty grand of his venture-capital firm’s money into my jewellery business, Libby Goes To Hollywood, I couldn’t believe my luck. His money, not to mention his bulging contacts book and business expertise, has turned LGTH from a teeny-tiny, financially strapped entity, with a handful of customers, into a proper little business with a glossy website, all kinds of terrific press, and – sorry, but this still excites me probably most of all – gorgeous swanky packaging, with eau-de-nil and dove-grey boxes stamped with silver lettering and filled with silver tissue paper. These days I can’t keep up with demand for the cheaper pieces I sell on the website, so I’ve outsourced the manufacture of those to a fantastic little artisanal factory in Croatia instead, while I try to concentrate on the design side, and on the manufacture of some of my more intricate pieces. Six months ago I even ended up doing a brief collaboration with the jewellery department at Liberty (the glamorous department store after which, though she’ll claim otherwise, I’m still pretty sure Mum named me) as part of a New Designers’ showcase. Recently there was an entire feature about me in Brides magazine, focusing on the vintage-style bespoke tiaras I’ve made for a few clients. I mean, I’m still small, but I’m growing, and none of it would ever have happened without Ben.

The flip-side of it all, however, is that it can occasionally be … well, a little bit of a fight to retain a hundred per cent of what I guess you might call ‘creative control’. Or, more specifically, the direction the business is heading in. Twelve months ago, I might not have had a crystal-clear plan for it all. I just wanted to make quirky, Old-Hollywood-inspired costume jewellery, at an affordable price – but at least I was still happily meandering in that general direction. Ben, I’m slowly beginning to realize, has slightly different ideas and, in every conversation we’ve had over the last couple of months, he has been pushing me towards scaling back the cheaper end and concentrating on expensive, bespoke orders. Admittedly the margins are higher on these, but I have a suspicion that his reasoning is also motivated by the fact that he has other designers making more mass-market jewellery and accessories in his little ‘stable’ of companies, and – most of all – by the fact that Elvira Roberts-Hoare, his close advisor, is advising him to stick to the luxury end of the market where I’m concerned. I don’t have all that much contact with her, but I know she’s not all that sold on the Hollywood-inspired angle, for one thing –‘at the end of the day, darling, they’re just dead celebrities. It’s all a bit too Sunset Boulevard’– and, more to the point, she’s even less sold on the whole ‘affordable price’ thing. Her vision for Libby Goes To Hollywood is, as far as I can tell, that I custom-make heinously expensive one-off pieces for a double-barrelled clientele – brides, mostly – who pop up on the society pages of Tatler.

I can only assume that this is because these things – double-barrelled clients, and the society pages of Tatler – are her particular area of expertise. And, I suspect, more to the point, because she’s cheesed off that Ben was the one who brought me under his umbrella in the first place, without her being the one to scout me, as is their usual arrangement. And that she wants to stamp her authority and opinions on Libby Goes To Hollywood as a way of asserting her position.

But I can’t complain. I mean that in its truest sense. I can’t complain. Ben owns sixty-five per cent of my company, and has put tens of thousands of pounds into it. And Elvira is his right-hand woman, so he’s always going to take her opinion over mine.

I’m just hoping that maybe, just maybe, today’s meeting might swing things a little more in my favour. I’ve been working really hard on the designs for a new collection of chunky bronze cuffs, studded with semi-precious birthstones, a few of which I’ve got to show Ben and Elvira today. I’m also armed with promising sales figures from the most recent collection that the factory in Croatia made for me, and …

I can hear that the front door is opening, and that Elvira and Ben are on their way in. Seeing as this means Elvira must have used her own door key, I’ll have to have a little word with her about privacy as soon as … actually, let’s be honest, I won’t have a word with her about privacy at all. This is her place – well, her father’s, but who’s splitting hairs? – and I’m staying here as close to rent-free as makes no difference. She could tap-dance in unannounced, in the middle of the night, with a marching band playing loud oom-pah-pahs right behind her, and I’d still keep my mouth shut.

‘Libby? You here?’

‘I’m right here, Ben!’ I reply, heading out of the back room and into the as-yet-empty showroom space at the front. ‘Hi! Great to see you both.’

Ben, who I go up to kiss on both cheeks, is looking as immaculate as I’ve ever seen him: sharp suit, open-neck shirt, and a hot pink silk pocket square, just to give the nod to the fact he’s the kind of multimillionaire venture capitalist who invests in fashion businesses rather than anything mundane like steel production or microchip technology. But Elvira … well, she looks positively extraordinary. She’s rocking a tiny paisley kaftan that only just covers her practically non-existent buttocks, Grecian sandals that lace up as far as her equally nonexistent thighs, a Hermès Birkin bag in the crook of one emaciated arm; her silver-blonde hair, in milkmaid plaits, is pushed back from her face with a colossal pair of sunglasses.

‘Elvira!’ I contemplate giving her a kiss too, but her forbidding aura of haughtiness puts me off. ‘Thanks so much, again, for all this.’ I wave a hand around the showroom. ‘Obviously I haven’t really had a chance to think about how I’m going to fit it out, yet, but it’s such a great space, I’m sure it’s going to be—’

‘I need water,’ she says, abruptly, cutting me off and starting to head up the stairs without waiting for an invitation. ‘Do you have flat mineral in the kitchen?’

‘Mineral water? Er … no, only tap. I can pop up the road to the shop, if it would—’

‘No time for that,’ she throws over her shoulder, clearly a woman in the midst of a dehydration emergency. ‘Tap will have to do.’

‘So, Libby, good to see you settled here,’ Ben says. His tone, as ever, is brusque, but I’m used to this by now and know that he (almost always) means kindly enough. ‘It’s a little fancier than … sorry, what’s the name of the place you were living before?’

‘Colliers Wood.’

‘A little fancier than Colliers Wood, huh?’

‘Yes, it’s lovely.’ I pick up my stack of bronze cuffs and the paperwork for my sales figures, and start to follow him up the stairs towards the living room. ‘Thanks, Ben, for getting Elvira to let me have the place.’

‘It’s nothing. Besides, El’s been talking about the idea of you working out of a showroom for months now, right?’

‘Yes, she has. In fact, that was one thing I was really hoping we could speak about today, Ben.’ We reach the living room; Elvira has gone on up to the next floor to source her urgent water from the kitchen. ‘I mean, I love having the showroom too, obviously, and it’s going to be fantastic for meetings with my bespoke clients and stuff … but I suppose what I’m still really hoping for, one day soon, is to actually start up my own shop premises. And I guess I’d really just like to be sure that that’s something you’d be supportive of, as well as the whole showroom thing, when the time—’

‘I thought you’d moved in.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I thought you’d moved in.’ Ben gestures around the living room. ‘Where’s all your stuff?’

‘Oh, right! This is all my stuff!’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘No, no, I like to live with … er … a very minimalist aesthetic …’

‘You’re kidding,’ Ben repeats. He nods in the direction of the Chesterfield. ‘I mean, is that old thing part of your minimalist aesthetic?’

‘Well, no, but I like to mix minimalism with … vintage quirkiness.’

‘That’s vintage quirk, all right.’ Ben wanders over and peers, gingerly, at the sofa. ‘It doesn’t have mice, or anything, does it?’

I’m offended, on behalf of the Chesterfield, that this is the second time today someone has implied there are things living in it.

Or, more accurately, offended that it’s the second time someone has implied there are creepy-crawly, rodenty things living in it.

As opposed to the actual things living in it. Which are – and I’ll keep this ever so brief, because it makes me sound nuts, no matter how I put it – Hollywood screen legends.

And, to be honest, I don’t really think they live in the sofa, as such. It’s more just that they appear from it. Because the sofa itself is … magical? I mean, this is the best – in fact, pretty much the only – explanation I’ve been able to come up with myself.

I said I’d sound nuts, OK? But there’s honestly no other way for me to explain it.

‘No, it doesn’t have mice! Anyway, Ben, as I was saying, I’m really glad we’ve got this opportunity to have a bit of a chat about things, because—’

‘What’s going on down here?’ Elvira demands, as she reappears at the bottom of the stairs, having come down from the kitchen. ‘What are you two talking about?’

‘Well, I was just saying—’

‘I was asking Libby if she has mice in this old couch,’ Ben says. ‘I mean, did you ever see anything like it?’

‘I didn’t.’ Elvira gazes at the Chesterfield. ‘God, I kind of love it.’

I’m astonished by this. ‘Really? Everybody else I know hates it.’

‘Oh, well, nobody knows anything about vintage furniture, darling. Not unless they have an eye for this sort of thing.’

Her tone suggests that she herself does have an eye which, to be fair, she does, if that extraordinary feature in Elle Decor was anything to go by.

‘It’s an old film-set prop, actually,’ I say, relieved to have found something to bond with Elvira over, after months of our uncomfortable alliance. ‘From Pinewood Studios.’

‘No.’ Her eyebrows shoot upwards. ‘How did you get hold of something like that?’

‘I used to be an actress,’ I say, before adding, swiftly, ‘well, just an extra, really. But I was working on a show at Pinewood a couple of years ago when I first moved into my old flat, and a – uh – friend of mine who worked there too had an arrangement with the guy who ran the props warehouse. Anything they didn’t really want any more was fair game to take away.’

‘And nobody else wanted this?’ Elvira puts her Birkin down on one of the sofa’s cushions and runs a hand over the blowsy apricot-coloured fabric. ‘God, people are such idiots. This is a stunning piece!’

‘El, honey, you can’t be serious.’ Ben lets out a short bark of laughter. ‘This old heap of junk?’

‘Don’t be such a philistine. This must have so much history, I’m sure, if it was at Pinewood all those years.’

I can feel myself redden. We may be getting along the best we’ve ever managed, me and Elvira – practically besties ourselves, now, in comparison to our usual strained relations – but I don’t think we’re anywhere close to a situation where I might confide in her the full extent of my Chesterfield’s ‘history’.

‘Well,’ I say, ‘I don’t know about that.’

‘You know, darling, if you’d like to get it refurbished, I have some amazing furniture restorers on my speed-dial—’

‘God, no!’ I practically yelp. Because – and I’m very far from an expert here, trust me – even though I may not have seen a Hollywood legend appear from the sofa since Marilyn Monroe, almost exactly a year ago last June, I have a gut feeling that it’ll only ever work again if it stays exactly like this. So yes, it’s a bit grubby, and yes, that smell of moist dog still never quite fades, no matter how many times I open a window and fan fresh air in its direction with a tea-towel. But for all I know, even the merest squirt of Febreze is going to take away its remarkable powers for ever. I’m not going to risk it. ‘Thanks so much for the offer, Elvira,’ I continue, ‘but I kind of like it the way it is.’

‘Oh! Well, that’s up to you, I suppose.’ But she’s looking at me with a little more respect than usual. ‘I can understand you don’t want to take away from the soul of the piece.’

‘That’s exactly it.’ I beam at her. ‘And in fact,’ I go on, hoping to use this unexpected moment of positivity between us as a springboard to more important things, ‘talking of souls, I’d really love to have a conversation about the next phase of plans for Libby Goes To Hollywood.’

‘That’s exactly why we’re here,’ Elvira says. ‘I mean, now that you’ve got the new studio, obviously it’s time to start moving things forward.’

‘Great!’

I feel a rush of relief at how well this is all going for a change. Our previous meetings have all been so awkward and stilted. I’ve been intimidated by her gawky beauty, her ineffable style and her screaming poshness, and she’s probably been … well, not intimidated by a single thing about me. Visibly irritated, you’d probably have to say, by my all-too-apparent lack of screaming poshness. And now here we are, conversation (comparatively) flowing.

I take a deep breath, and begin the little pitch I’ve been practising in my head. ‘Well, I’ve been looking at the sales figures from the website, and they’re really on their way up over the last three months. So I’ve been thinking I’d like to—’

‘Oh, yeah, that’s what we wanted to speak about, too.’ Ben sits down on the Chesterfield, either forgetting or ignoring his concern about rodent inhabitants. ‘El and I were talking in the cab over here, and we both think it’s really time to wind up that side of the business, and focus your energies more on the bespoke commissions.’

‘Yeah,’ says Elvira although, because she’s so screamingly posh, this comes out as a yah. ‘Specifically the bridal commissions. After all, I think we can all agree that’s where your greatest talents lie, Libby.’

‘What? No. I mean … I don’t think we can agree that’s where my greatest talents lie.’ I stare at them both. ‘That might be where my biggest margins have come from these last few months, but if you have a look at the website sales, the charm bracelets and opal rings have been doing really, really well. And,’ I go on, remembering that I’m still holding a couple of my new bronze cuffs, ‘I’m really hoping this sort of thing is going to be a big seller, too, when I launch them on the website.’

Elvira glances at the cuff I’m holding out for her to inspect. ‘Pretty,’ she says, with a dismissive shrug, not even bothering to look properly at it. ‘But that’s not really the direction we see the business heading in, is it, Ben, darling?’

‘Nope, not really,’ Ben says. He’s taken out his phone, and is tapping away on the screen. ‘Listen to El, Libby. She knows what she’s talking about.’

‘Right, I’m sure, but I know what I’m talking about, too.’ I can’t quite believe I’m actually saying this to the pair of them – the de facto owner of my business, and someone as scary as Elvira – but needs must. Besides, after our moment of bonding over the sofa, I think she’ll respect me more if I stand my ground. ‘Look, it’s not that I don’t enjoy bridal commissions—’

‘Well, I’m glad to hear it.’ Elvira bestows me with a rare smile. ‘That piece in Brides has led to hundreds of enquiries, no? And – so far – dozens and dozens of actual orders.’

‘Sure, and like I say, it’s not that I don’t enjoy it.’ I take another deep breath. ‘It’s just that … well, the brides who’ve come to me after that article pretty much all want exactly the same thing.’

‘You mean the vintage-style tiara they featured in the magazine article Elvira arranged for you?’ Ben glances up from his phone. ‘The one,’ he adds, in a meaningful sort of way, ‘with the three hundred per cent margin?’

‘Yes, OK, I get that it’s good for profit.’ I stare, rather desperately, in Elvira’s direction, wanting to appeal to her sense of creativity. ‘I just really wanted to have a bit more say in the design process. Rather than just replicating the same thing over and over again.’

She looks back at me. ‘Well, I do get that,’ she says.

‘I knew you would!’ I can see a tiny little chink of light here, I really can. ‘Look, Elvira, perhaps if you could have a closer look at some of the pieces I’m working on at the moment, not just the cuffs, but also OH MY GOD, IT’S A RAT!’

I wasn’t planning on finishing the sentence this way, but then I wasn’t expecting to see an actual rodent, just the sort that Ben has been suspicious about, scurrying out from the Chesterfield’s squashy cushions.

I act, I think, with commendable speed under the circumstances – after all, it’s my sofa, so therefore my rat, and I want to be clear I’m taking full responsibility for the horror – by pulling back my right arm and hurling both bronze cuffs towards the rat’s head.

I mean, I’m an animal lover, so I’m not actually trying to kill the thing, just scare it off, or, I don’t know, knock it out.

But Elvira, the moment she sees the cuffs go loose, screams as if I’m about to accidentally injure a newborn infant.

‘Don’t hurt my baby!’ she screeches, diving into the cuffs’ trajectory, but too late. One of them has actually made contact with the rat – its tail end, I think, and not its head – and it has let out a little squeal.

I’m confused, for a moment, as to why a rat would make a noise like that, and – much more importantly – why on earth Elvira is calling it her baby.

But then Ben is on his feet too, hurrying over to help Elvira tend to the creature.

‘Is he all right?’ he demands. ‘Did it hit him?’

‘I think so! Oh, my poor baby!’ Elvira is actually gathering the rat up, into her arms, and raining kisses down on its head. ‘I think it got him on the leg! At the very least,’ she adds, turning to me with a look of murderous fury in her eyes, ‘he’s totally fucking traumatized!’

‘I don’t … sorry, but I honestly don’t think rats can feel trauma, can they?’

‘He’s not a rat! He’s a dog! My dog!’

My mouth falls open. ‘Oh, God, Elvira, I didn’t—’

‘He’s a Xoloitzcuintli,’ Ben says, gruffly.

I blink at him.

‘A miniature Mexican hairless!’ Elvira spits. ‘The Aztecs considered them sacred!’

All I can honestly think to this is: more fool the Aztecs. Because, seriously, this dog is a peculiar-looking beast. Well, obviously, given that I have just mistaken him for a large rat.

‘He’s only eight weeks old,’ Elvira is going on, continuing to examine and kiss the dog/rat in equal proportion. ‘He’s just a puppy! How could you attack him like that, Libby?’

‘Elvira, again, I’m so sorry. I didn’t attack him … well, OK, I threw the cuffs, but only because I thought he was … er … well, you know … and Ben had been saying he thought there might be mice or something in the sofa …’

‘He was in my bag!’ Elvira points a shaking hand at her Birkin bag, still on the Chesterfield, that the dog must have just crept out of. ‘And really, Libby, what did you think I wanted water for, when we got here?’

‘I’m sorry, I just assumed … is he OK?’ I add, taking a step closer, albeit a little bit gingerly, but Elvira jumps back as if I’m brandishing an entire arsenal of dog-injuring weaponry.

‘You’ve done enough,’ she snarls. ‘Ben, darling, can you get a cab? I want to get Tino straight to the vet.’

‘Of course, hon.’ Ben shoots a rather weary look in my direction as he heads back to the sofa to pick up his phone. ‘Jeez, Libby,’ he says. ‘What is it with you and other people’s dogs?’

This is a rather unfair reference to the first time he met me – a time that, until now, both of us have chosen never to reference again – when I accidentally got myself stuck in a dog safety gate in my underwear.

‘Honestly,’ I say, as Elvira shoots me another evil look to end all evil looks, ‘I’m an animal lover! I just thought—’

‘Yes, we know. You thought he was a rat,’ she spits. ‘You’ve made that perfectly clear already, thank you, Libby.’

‘But honestly, he looks OK,’ I go on, looking at Tino in a manner that I hope appears concerned rather than (I have to be honest) ever-so-slightly revolted. And this is true, because his little rodenty face looks relaxed enough, and there are no visible injuries on his equally rodenty body. If anything, he’s looking eager to leap out of Elvira’s tight embrace, and head for … well, he’s looking extremely longingly at the sofa, actually. He must be getting all those lovely doggy whiffs of canines past coming off it.

‘Oh, what the fuck would you know? You’re not a vet!’

‘Cab here in three minutes, El,’ Ben says, slipping his phone back into his pocket. ‘We’ll have to carry on this conversation another time, Libby, OK?’

‘What? No! I mean,’ I go on, trying to sound more calm and collected than I feel, ‘I’ve been really looking forward to this meeting. There’s so much to discuss, and we don’t often get the opportunity to—’

‘Come on. It’s hardly the time.’

‘It’s certainly not.’ Elvira is stalking over to the Chesterfield to pick up her Birkin, all ready to place Tino tenderly inside it. But he’s evidently got other ideas, because he slips out of her grasp, and lurches down towards the sofa itself, where he starts to sort of … well, I don’t know what the technical term would be, but it does look very much as if he’s trying to pleasure himself against the chintzy, apricot-coloured fabric.

‘Huh,’ observes Ben, as we all gaze at Tino in a rather shocked silence for a moment. ‘Guess there must be the scent of quite a few old mutts on this thing, right?’

But I don’t think it’s that. I don’t think it’s that at all. Yes, the Chesterfield does have an aroma of dog – always has – but from the transfixed expression on Tino’s face, I think he’s picking up on something more than mere waft of long-gone Labrador, or past poodle.

I mean, animals have sixth senses, don’t they? Especially so, probably, if they’re the kind of animals that the Aztecs considered sacred.

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Elvira, puce in the face now with embarrassment as well as anger, grabs Tino mid-rut and holds him firmly under her arm as she heads for the stairs. ‘We’ll discuss this incident another time, Libby,’ she tells me. ‘But suffice it to say I am Not Happy. Not Happy At All.’

Which is, to be fair, pretty much the impression I’ve got every other time I’ve met her. That she’s Not Happy about anything I have to offer. It’s just that there were those few minutes where we seemed to bond, ever so slightly, over the vintage sofa. And now it’s all gone backwards again. Actually, worse than backwards, because even if she has not been that impressed with me before now, at least I’d never tried, in her eyes, to assassinate her precious Mexican hairless dog.

‘Yeah,’ says Ben, already back on his phone again, as he follows her down the stairs towards their taxi. ‘We’ll be in touch, Libby. I’ll try to set something up, the next time I’m over.’

‘But Ben, I really—’

‘Bye, Libby,’ he says, with a wave of the hand, not even glancing back at me. ‘Oh, and try to keep up the orders for that vintage tiara, yeah? That thing’s your bread and butter. Your books are never gonna add up without it.’

The front door bangs shut behind them a couple of moments later, leaving me and my Chesterfield alone, together, in our accidentally minimalist new flat.