Episode S310‘What the fuck is that?’ Shane’s voice, coming close to Bette and Tina’s heads, out of the darkness of the room, made th […]

Episodes S308 and S309Three black Range Rovers and one silver Rolls-Royce pulled up in a semi-circle around the steps of the gleaming […]

Christmas was always fun in the Porter-Kennard house, but this year the main event was the trip that everyone was taking over new year with the Peabodys.

The invitation emails had given the bare […]

A week had once again flown by, not least because Christmas was now firmly on the Porter-Kennard radar. And there had been some very big news on that front: Alice was coming! Not for Christmas, but she was going […]

When Friday night came round again Tina was walking Solly round the block after dinner when she realised she had no plan whatsoever for how to watch the show. Shane was out with Jo, so that helped, but what if she […]

‘Ben, Nik and Sonny in the kids’ room,’ Bette said, ‘Kit, Angie and Sasha in the third room. What’s wrong with that?’

‘Shane,’ said Sasha and Tina in unison.

Bette groaned. It was eight o’clock on Wedn […]

‘So, that was pickleball,’ Bette said as she and Tina waved Peggy and Helena off, away up Third Avenue, in their town car.

Tina laughed. ‘Not a fan?’

‘Of getting yelled at by a septuagenarian billionai […]

Solly lay on his blanket in the corner of Tina’s home office, watching her with patient brown eyes. She’d been in there all afternoon, half-watching screeners in between taking online meetings with her team, and […]

Tina smiled. ‘Hi,’ she said softly. ‘I’m Tina.’

Bette’s face broke into a beaming smile. Her eyes welled with tears. She laughed. Tina laughed too. And then Bette gathered up Tina’s right hand, kissed it, an […]

Bette stood in the hallway of Grahame’s house and tried not to cry. It was six-thirty on a miserable, wet London morning in late October, but none of that was the reason.

‘I’ll send you videos, darli […]

Tina opened her front door and dropped her bag in the hallway with an exhausted sigh. The house was quiet and dark. Barely seven in the evening, but she could have happily gone straight to bed.

‘Not t […]

Bette’s car nosed gingerly through the traffic as she sat in the quiet, insulated back seat reading her notes. It felt daft sometimes. The journey wasn’t even two miles, she could walk it easily, but on days lik […]

‘Timothy Dwight College, Yale’s ninth residential college, opened on September 23rd 1935 at an over-budget cost of $2,000,000. It was—’

‘Alice?’

‘What?’

‘Shut up.’

Tina spoke with her eyes closed, he […]

On a Monday morning in early January, her first back at work after a rather miserable holiday season, Bette was sitting curled into the corner of the sofa in her office. It was near-impossible to get privacy in […]

For the rest of the day Tina wondered about texting Bette, but she couldn’t find the words for what she wanted to say. How to explain that she was just so tired. That what she wanted more than anything was a l […]

Bette got out of bed, grabbed her robe (Pippa’s really, but she’d been using it long enough) and padded through to the kitchen. It was early September, the air in Topanga dry and still. The bifold door that led […]

In the hours that followed the golf game, Tina fought the urge to call Bette and row back on what she’d said. She felt vulnerable and foolish, everything had come out too hurried, too blunt . . . ‘Raw’ was the w […]

‘Wait, did you say “golf”?’

Angie’s face at the breakfast table was a perfect mix of confusion and amusement.

‘Mhmm,’ Bette replied, as lightly as she could.

‘Golf ?’ Angie now wrinkled her nose. ‘Like w […]

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse . . .

Well, okay. Not the ‘night before’. In fact, it was the morning before and at least one […]

Bette steered the Volvo as gently and as smoothly as she could up the moonlit driveway, bringing it to a stop outside the front door. She engaged the handbrake and glanced at the clock on the dash. Just gone […]