I'd considered canceling my dinner with Ted that evening. As I walked back to the cottage, I'd told myself I was too upset, too distracted and emotional to have a romantic tete-a-tete, which, however much I reminded myself it was just supper at my place, I knew it would be. I'd also bitten all around both thumbnails, taken my phone from my pocket and even composed the text to him, but then I thought — no. I'll do it later, if I have to. If I decide I really want to be on my own to think. However, the rational side of my brain, which has always been very, very small, told me that actually, if I didn't see Ted, I was indulging my much larger, overdramatic, unrealistic side. And that I needed to be doing something, in order not to be doing something else. Not to be drinking a bottle of wine on my own, reigniting the fire of indignation and injustice, and striding up to the house in high dudgeon to have it out with Janey, thus ruining any clever, patient damage limitation Tommy was to perform.

It wasn't going to happen, this U-turn of Peter's, of that I was absolutely certain. Tommy hadn't convinced me otherwise — and neither had he intended to. What he had done was persuade me that there were other ways of getting what I wanted. Well . . . obviously what Peter wanted. And that going about it in my own sweet, loose-cannon way was a guaranteed suicide mission. I could see that. I could see that getting Peter to really think about it was smarter.

I took my phone from my pocket. Put it back again. Because I was also torn about ringing the one person I really wanted to talk to about this: Mum. I feared what she'd say. My mother resembled Hugo in that she thought people should be left to do what they wanted, but, whereas Hugo took the less confrontational path, the path of least resistance to keep the peace, Mum didn't. It wasn't about an easy ride. It was more of a philosophy. She felt people should be allowed to make mistakes because that was how they learned. Especially the young. She felt it was good if children failed exams, if it made them want to do better the next time. And she felt today's young generation was too goal-oriented. She also thought things happened for a reason, the reason being all about learning who you are, gaining insight into your own character, which let's face it, takes years, and if you're shielded from doing it in your formative ones, it doesn't help you later. So she disagreed with having the immediate path too tidy and swept by others.