‘And you won’t tell Mummy, will you?’ she asked, since I had used this as a threat, without any intention of carrying it out. ‘Only she’ll have me locked up in some ghastly addiction clinic!’

I agreed that no, I wouldn’t do that, before carrying away my spoils and flushing them straight down the nearest loo. It took several flushes before they all vanished.

Coco came down later in a slightly chastened and quiet frame of mind, but soon showed signs of reviving since everyone was being nice to her, in their own way. She’d brought her handbag with her and kept a firm grip on it at all times, so she was obviously afraid I would change my mind and empty that of laxatives, too!

After supper, Jess showed me the long satin dress she’d picked out for me, which was not only a fairly sickly shade of salmon pink, but about twelve inches too short, though apparently for most of the play I would be disguised as a man anyway.

Coco had appropriated a white dress in which she looked like an emaciated bride and Jess herself wore a crown made of papiermâché and glass jewels. She’d been wearing it to supper, too.

‘I just like it,’ she explained. ‘I don’t have to have a real costume since I’m only Props, though Michael said that’s one of the most important jobs in the theatre. I have to make sure everyone is dressed for their parts at the right time, with all the things they need.’

‘I think you’d better wear a man’s overcoat until the end of the play, where you’re revealed as Sebastian’s sister — there’s one hanging up in the hall. Your boobs are way too big,’ Coco said to me, making me immediately sorry I’d been kind to her earlier — but I expect now she was feeling better she was getting a bit of her own back about the Fruity-Go.

‘I find myself unable to second that opinion,’ Guy said and I gave him a cold look.

‘Holly’s in perfect proportion,’ Jude said. ‘I should know, because I’ve spent most of the afternoon drawing her.’

I wasn’t sure whether to be embarrassed about having my figure discussed in this way, or take this remark as a compliment.

‘She’s too tall though, even for a model,’ Coco objected.

Jude looked slightly surprised. ‘Do you think so? She seems about the right height to me.’

‘I am perfect, all the top designers say so,’ Coco said.

‘Well, it’s a strange world and it takes all sorts!’ Noël said cheerfully. ‘Now, what did we find for Jude to wear in the play?’

‘Just this dark blue velvet cloak,’ Jess said. ‘And a sword and moustache.’

‘I don’t mind wearing the cloak, but I draw the line at stick-on moustaches,’ Jude said firmly.

‘I daresay he could grow one by tomorrow if you insisted on it,’ Tilda remarked from the sofa in front of the fire. I think that might have been a slight exaggeration. . maybe two days.

Guy went back to the half-finished jigsaw, though going by his expression, it annoyed him that I had stuck a couple more pieces in earlier. He gave me a suspicious stare that reminded me strongly of his brother.

We pulled chairs into a half-circle near the Christmas tree, ready to read through our parts for the first time, but first Noël gave us a brief run-down of the plot and the characters we would be playing.

‘Orsino, Duke of Illyria — that’s you, Jude — is in love with Olivia, played by Coco.’

‘“If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken and so die,”’ declaimed Tilda thrillingly from the sofa.

‘Precisely, m’dear,’ Noël said. ‘Now, Sebastian and his twin sister Viola — you and Michael, Holly — are shipwrecked. Viola thinks her brother is dead, so she disguises herself as a man, and takes service with Orsino, as Cesario.’

‘All this cross-dressing must have been even stranger in Shakespeare’s time, when Viola would have been played by a young boy, playing a woman, disguised as a man,’ Michael said, with a grin.

‘I’m glad I don’t have to pretend to be a man, I’d never pull it off,’ Coco said. ‘Olivia is a ravishingly beautiful countess, but she doesn’t fancy Orsino.’

‘That’s one interpretation,’ Jude said. ‘But she’s certainly not very bright, because when Orsino sends Viola/Cesario to woo her, dressed as a man, she falls in love with her.’

I was feeling confused already and Coco frowned, ‘I’m not too keen on that bit, can’t we change it?’

‘I think we ought to leave it as the Bard put it, m’dear,’ Noël said, ‘it’s integral to the plot. So basically,’ he continued, ‘Viola falls in love with Orsino, who thinks she is a boy. Olivia falls in love with Viola, ditto, Orsino thinks he loves Olivia, and Sebastian isn’t really dead, he’s on his way there with his friend Antonio.’

‘Then it all comes to a head with lots of misunderstandings and mistaken identities, until finally Sebastian is married to Olivia and Orsino decides he’ll settle for Viola.’

‘But only if she looks good in a dress,’ Jude remarked, with a sideways look at me, but I didn’t rise to the bait.

We read it through aloud, with a bit of good-natured heckling by Becca and Tilda. Luckily, I didn’t seem to have too many soppy things to say to or about Jude/Orsino, since he doesn’t know Viola isn’t a boy until right near the end. It was a bit embarrassing when Coco had to pretend she was in love with me as Cesario, though. .

Michael’s scenes with Olivia were also towards the end, when all the tangles get cut, but she still seemed dead set on getting him alone on the pretext of rehearsing them, a move he was clearly determined to resist to the death! I couldn’t work out if Coco had fallen for Michael (which wouldn’t be a surprise, since he’s very handsome, in a slightly drawn and haggard way), or simply saw him as a stepping stone to an acting career; but she’d certainly abandoned any claim on Guy and was going all out on a charm offensive.

Meanwhile Guy still persisted in trying to flirt with me and the fact that he wasn’t getting anywhere increasingly appeared to puzzle him. He followed me into the kitchen later when I went to make cocoa for those who wanted it, which was just me, Jude and Jess, because the rest of the party were hitting the sherry or the hard stuff again.

‘You know, I really like you, Holly,’ he said, ‘and I want to get to know you better. But let’s face it, I’m getting nowhere, am I? Why is that — am I too shallow, or don’t you like the colour of my socks?’

‘You simply aren’t my type.’ I was clattering pans and cutlery into the dishwasher for one final go of the day.

‘No? That’s strange, because I’ve always considered myself a universally appealing one-size-fits-all type,’ he said modestly.

‘Not as far as I’m concerned: and my gran would have said you were all mouth and trousers.’

‘Is that good?’

‘No. Don’t forget that I’ve seen first-hand that you’re a total love-rat, too — and everyone says you’re just like your Uncle Ned, who abandoned one poor girl when she was pregnant because he was already engaged to another at the time,’ I said acidly. ‘So no, I don’t think you’d be much of a proposition, even if I believed you were serious and not just being daft.’

He sighed. ‘You’ve got me all wrong. . but I’ll change your mind. Till then, couldn’t you try and like me?’

‘I do a bit, sometimes,’ I admitted. ‘You can be quite funny.’

‘I’m not sure if that’s good or not. But the right woman would be the making of me, Tilda says so — and you look a bit of all right to me.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought anything short of a frontal lobotomy would change you,’ I said dubiously, ‘but then, she knows you better than I do.’

He laughed. ‘I wish now I hadn’t let Jude take my place as Orsino. He’s going to get all the hands-on action.’

‘There won’t be any hands-on action and I only agreed to do this stupid play to keep your wretched girlfriend in good humour, so she didn’t ruin Christmas for everyone else. . and to cheer her up a bit, because I felt sorry for her.’

‘She’s not my girlfriend anymore and she’s already got her sights on Michael to fill the vacancy. He’s proving surprisingly resistant to her charms, though, just as you are to mine.’

‘Yes, that’s because he’s not daft, either.’

‘Or perhaps because he’s got other interests?’

I looked at him with surprise and then laughed. ‘Do you mean me? Michael and I are becoming good friends, but there’s no attraction between us of any other kind. Strange as it may seem to you, I’m perfectly happy single.’

‘Me too,’ Michael said, coming in just in time to overhear the last sentence. ‘I wish someone would tell Coco that!’

Guy grinned and went back to the others and I said to Michael, ‘I think it’s mean how Jude and Guy keep throwing you and Coco together, just because they’re tired of her. They hope chasing you will keep her amused.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve been pursued before, not to sound too immodest — and she’s not my type. But I’m looking on it as a sort of price to be paid for being made so welcome here over Christmas, the unexpected guest.’

‘I wouldn’t say Jude seems to be making you very welcome!’

‘I think he has his reasons,’ Michael said with a smile. ‘Just as I suspect Guy is flirting with you partly to wind his brother up — though that’s not to say that he doesn’t find you attractive, too, because I can tell he does.’

‘I can’t see why Jude would care if Guy did get off with me. But it isn’t going to happen, even if Guy is under the delusion he can twist me round his little finger if he turns on the charm enough.’