“No, thanks,” I say politely. “We just want to talk.”

“We’re very discreet,” says the girl. “We can work with your feet, or your head, or the pressure points in your face.…”

I can see Elinor recoiling at the very idea. “I do not wish to be touched,” she says stiffly. “Thank you.”

“We can work without touching you,” persists the girl. “We can do a tarot reading, or we have a humming meditation, or we can work with your aura.”

I want to burst into giggles at Elinor’s expression. Her aura? Do they mean that chilly cloud of disapproval that follows her round like her own atmosphere?

“I do not possess an aura,” she says, her tones like icicles. “I had it surgically removed.” She glances sidelong at me, and then, to my utter astonishment, she gives the faintest of winks.

Oh my God. Did Elinor just make a joke?

At her own expense?

I’m so gobsmacked I can’t speak, and the girl seems a bit nonplussed as well, because she backs away without trying to press any more therapies on us.

Minnie has been surveying Elinor intently throughout all of this, and now Elinor turns to her.

“What is it, Minnie?” she says uncompromisingly. “You shouldn’t stare at people. Aren’t you going to sit down?”

Elinor always talks to Minnie as though she’s another adult, and Minnie loves it. Minnie doesn’t answer but leans forward and picks a tiny thread off Elinor’s skirt.

“All gone,” she says dismissively, and drops the thread on the floor.

Ha! Ha-di-ha!

How many times has Elinor made a point of picking some tiny bit of fluff or speck off my clothes? And now Minnie’s got her revenge. Only Elinor doesn’t look remotely put out.

“Thank you,” she says to Minnie gravely. “The housekeeper at my hotel is somewhat lax.”

“Lax,” agrees Minnie, equally gravely. “Lax bax … Guess how much I love you,” she adds inconsequentially.

I know that Minnie’s quoting from her bedtime book, but Elinor doesn’t—and I’m stunned by her instant reaction. Her cheekbones start to tremble and there’s a sheen to her eye.

“Well,” she says in a low voice. “Well, Minnie.”

It’s almost unbearable, watching her tight chalky-white face struggle with emotion. She puts her lined, beringed hand on Minnie’s head and strokes it a few times, as though that’s the most she can bring herself to do.

God, I’d love to loosen her up. I should have ordered the mind-altering tea for repressed older women in Chanel suits.

“Elinor, we have to reconcile you with Luke,” I say impulsively. “I want you to be part of the family. Properly. I’m going to stage an intervention at our house, and I’m not letting either of you go till you’re friends.”

“I don’t believe ‘friends’ is the appropriate term,” she says, looking puzzled. “We are mother and son, not contemporaries.”

OK, this is why she doesn’t help herself.

“Yes, it is!” I say. “It’s totally appropriate. I’m friends with my mum, and you can jolly well be friends with Luke. When I tell him everything you did for the party—”

“No.” Elinor cuts me off, a sudden steel to her voice. “I have told you, Rebecca. Luke must never know of my involvement.”

“But you did such an amazing thing!” I say in frustration. “And he thinks it was Suze and Tarkie! It’s crazy!”

“He must never know.”

“But—”

“He must never know. I am not buying his love,” she adds, so quietly I can barely hear her.

“Elinor, it’s not ‘buying his love,’ ” I say gently. “It wasn’t just about the money. It was about all the thought and effort you put into it.”

The girl arrives with our drinks, and we’re both silent as she arranges teapots, cups, strainers, and little sugar crystals on a trolley made out of bamboo. I pour Elinor her hot water, and she picks it up without drinking it.

“So, Elinor,” I say, in soft, coaxing tones. “Will you tell him?”

“No,” she says in final tones. “And you will not tell him either. You made me a promise.”

Argh. It’s like she’s made of granite. This intervention is not going to be an easy matter.

“OK, then. Well, we’ll find another way.” I reach in my bag for my “conflict resolution” notes. I printed them off from Google and they’ve been quite helpful, except I realized a bit too late they were about conflict resolution in an industrialaction situation. I skim through the pages, trying to find something useful. Picketing, no … union representation, no … health and safety executive, no … cooperation techniques … Ooh, that’s more like it. Win-win negotiating strategy …