It really was extraordinarily difficult, though, describing oneself in just a few brief sentences. If she exaggerated the facts she risked ridicule when she eventually came to face it out. The prospect of being greeted with a look of horror and a derisory ‘I thought you said you were attractive’, was positively bone-chilling. The bald facts, however, – ‘plumpish, blondish deserted wife’ – might be so off-putting that no man would even be tempted to reply.

It took longer than filling out a tax return and was about as harrowing. Every time a customer came into the shop she jumped a mile and shoved her writing pad under the counter.

When Paula returned from making the morning deliveries, Janey was so engrossed she hardly heard her words.

‘I’ve had a brilliant idea.’

The pad was hidden but the pen was still in Janey’s hand. Twiddling it frantically between her fingers and pretending she’d been writing down an order, she managed, ‘What?’

‘If you placed one of those ads yourself, you could arrange to meet each man somewhere busy and ask them to wear a white carnation in their buttonhole.’

‘So?’

Paula, looking pleased with herself, pulled herself on to the spare stool and swung her legs.

‘So, all we have to do is sit here and wait for men to come in asking for a single white carnation.

You’ll be able to have a good look at them first, incognito. And if they’re too hideous for words you wouldn’t have to bother turning up.’

‘Cruel!’ protested Janey, starting to laugh.

‘Sensible. Not to mention good for business.’ Paula threw her a sidelong glance. ‘Do you think you might advertise, then?’

Paula was trustworthy, but some items of gossip were just too good to pass up. Her mother worked at Trezale House and Janey was determined that Maxine shouldn’t find out about this.

Now, more than ever, she needed to keep the last vestiges of her self-confidence intact.

‘Maybe when I’m fifty,’ she replied with tolerant amusement. ‘But for now, I think I’ll give it a miss.’

Maxine, unable to understand why she couldn’t simply scrawl the names on with pink Magic Marker, was struggling ill-temperedly to sew name tapes into Josh’s school shirts. Guy hadn’t helped, earlier, when he had remarked, ‘Not that anyone else is likely to mistake Josh’s shirts for their own, the way you iron them.’

He had said it jokingly, but Maxine had detected the dig. And although she’d been sewing for the last two and a half hours the pile of new school clothes still waiting to be attacked seemed more mountainous than ever.

‘Dad’s taking photographs of Serena,’ Josh reported from his position in the window seat overlooking the back garden. He frowned. ‘She doesn’t have very big bosoms for a grown-up.’

Maxine suppressed the memory of what she’d imagined working for Guy would be like. In her innocence she’d envisaged organizing games of hide-and-seek for the children, accompanying them to the pantomime and in her free time socializing happily with Guy. In her more elaborate fantasies, she was the one being endlessly photographed. And because Guy was so famous and respected, interest in his stunning new model would spread like wildfire ... the life of a super model beckoned ... she would become wealthy, a celebrity, loved by everyone ...

especially Guy Cassidy.

‘But then your bosoms are only little, as well,’ said Josh, who had been studying her with a critical eye. ‘Your sister has much bigger ones than you.’

‘A word of advice.’ Maxine clenched her teeth as she bit off a length of thread. ‘You’ll find life a lot easier if you don’t go through it telling people what small bosoms they have.’

‘Bosoms’ was currently his favourite word. Josh smirked.

‘And don’t you think you should be getting changed into something more suitable?’

Guy and Serena were supposed to be taking both Josh and Ella into St Ives for lunch and it was one o’clock already. Maxine, who had set her heart on an afternoon of serious sunbathing, was beginning to wonder if they’d forgotten.

Josh shrugged. ‘Oh, we aren’t going now. Dad’s taking Serena to meet some of her friends instead. They’ve got a yacht moored at Falmouth.’

Maxine’s heart sank. Bang went her peaceful afternoon. She wondered whether Serena had done it on purpose.

‘So we’re staying here with you,’ said Josh cheerfully. Then, in conversational tones he added, ‘Why do you keep pricking your fingers, Maxine? I hope all that blood’s going to wash out.’

Maxine was battling with the washing machine, which was making alarming noises like a jailer rattling his keys, when the doorbell rang. Glancing out through the kitchen window she saw a silver-grey Rolls Royce parked majestically in the drive. What fun, she thought, if the visitor was yet another of Guy’s ritzy model girlfriends, complete with sneer and a bootful of suitcases. He could install her in the other spare bedroom and visit them on alternate nights like some Arab sheik.

But just as the identity of the last unexpected caller had turned out not to be the milkman but Serena, so thisone appeared not to be a pouting, leggy model at all.

Wrong again, thought Maxine, realizing that she was grinning inanely at the visitor on the doorstep. What a good job she hadn’t set her heart on a career as a fortune teller.

‘Good afternoon,’ said the man, and although she was certain they hadn’t met before, he looked vaguely familiar. Hastily rearranging the grin into a more suitable smile, Maxine shook his outstretched hand and wondered if he might know something about erratic washing machines.

‘You must be Maxine, the new nanny,’ he continued warmly. ‘I’m Oliver Cassidy.’

Realization dawned. ‘I spoke to you on the phone earlier,’ she said, recognizing the deep, well-bred voice. ‘How nice to meet you, but I’m afraid Guy isn’t back yet. We aren’t expecting him home until this evening.’

‘I know.’ Oliver Cassidy looked a lot like his son but Maxine felt he possessed a great deal more charm. Now he shrugged and smiled. ‘But it seemed a shame to pass up the opportunity to see my grandchildren. It’s been quite a while, you see, and I’m only down here for the afternoon.’

Delighted to see him and mightily impressed with his car — which even had personalized plates — Maxine said at once, ‘Come in! Of course you couldn’t miss seeing the children.They’re playing in the summer-house at the moment; shall I go and call them or would you prefer to take them by surprise?’

‘Oh, surprise, I think.’ Guy’s father winked at her. He really was tons nicer than Guy, she decided. She’d never really gone for older men before, but he was almost enough to make her think again.

‘Can ‘I get you a drink?’ she said brightly, but Oliver Cassidy shook his head.

‘That’s kind of you, my dear, but I’d better not. I’m driving.’

‘It’s a beautiful car,’ said Maxine.

‘My great pride and joy.’ He nodded, acknowledging her admiration. ‘I thought Josh and Ella might enjoy a ride in it before I leave. If you have no objections, that is.’

‘Of course not!’ Maxine’s reply was almost vehement, her approval of Guy’s father was increasing in leaps and bounds. And now she would be able to sunbathe in peace after all.

‘Take them out for as long as you like,’ she told him happily. ‘I’m sure they’d love a trip in your car. What a shame, though, that you’ll miss seeing Guy.’

‘I cannot ... simply can not believe you could be so stupid!’

He was more furious than Maxine had ever imagined possible. ‘Fury’ wasn’t enough to describe his emotions. ‘Rage’ wasn’t good enough either. Guy simply looked as if he wanted to kill her.

This is it, she thought numbly. Now I really am out of a job and on to the streets.

Almost more galling, however, was the fact that Serena appeared to be on her side.

‘Look,’ said Maxine, struggling to defend herself and willing herself not to lose her temper.

‘I’ve already said I’m sorry, but how on earth was I supposed to know I was doing the wrong thing? He just turned up on the doorstep like any normal grandfather and said he’d cometo see Josh and Ella. From the way he acted, I assumed he was a regular visitor. And he seemed perfectly nice—’

‘Yes, darling,’ put in Serena, her tone soothing.

Her defence of Maxine’s actions was wholly astonishing as far as Maxine was concerned, and coming from any other quarter it would have afforded her some small comfort to know that she wasn’t as negligent as Guy was making out.

‘It isn’t Maxine’s fault that you and your father aren’t on speaking terms,’ Serena went on.

‘If you didn’t want him to see the children you should have told her.’

His eyes glittered. ‘He’s seen them once before. Only once, when he wasn’t given any alternative. So it was hardly likely that he’d turn up.’

Serena shrugged as if to say, Well, there you are then, but Guy hadn’t finished.

‘Besides, that’s hardly the point.’ Turning back to Maxine, he said icily, ‘He could have been anybody. Josh and Ella could have been kidnapped, held to ransom .. . murdered.’

‘He wasn’t a kidnapper,’ shouted Maxine. ‘He was your father.’

‘You mean he told you he was my father.’

Stung by his derisory tone, she snapped back. ‘He looked like you. Only better.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’

Maxine had had enough. It wasn’t as if Josh and Ella had been at all harmed, anyway. True to his word, Oliver Cassidy had taken them out in the Rolls, given them afternoon tea at one of the better beach-front hotels and delivered them back safely at five o’clock, as promised. He had even left them each clutching a crisp fifty-pound note because, as he’d explained to Maxine, it was hard to know what to buy children these days now that train sets and dolls were passé. It wasn’t until after he’d left that she’d made the alarming discovery that Josh and Ella didn’t actually know their grandfather. Although being on the receiving end of fifty-pound notes certainly went some way towards persuading them that they should.