‘Great, so you get to go off and do that while I sort out the birthday tea. I assume you haven’t started getting that ready?’ She opened the fridge and started pulling out a loaf of bread and cheese to make sandwiches.

‘It’s four little kids, Gabriela, I hardly think they’re expecting cordon bleu. I’ve bought crisps and cartons of juice, the sandwiches will take five minutes, if that, and Saoirse and Jim have the balloons already blown up in their car. They’ll be back with the kids at half past. Chill out, OK? It’s going to be fine.’

She bit her lip so hard that she felt it might bleed.

He was right, though. The party had gone well, without so much as an outburst of tears over who won pass-the-parcel. Tom had spent most of the time topping up parents’ glasses while Gabriela doled out the birthday tea, cleaning up as she went along, keeping herself busy so as to avoid any opportunity to become embroiled in unwanted small-talk.

Once the kids had all gone, Jim and Tom headed out for a pint, and Saoirse and Gabriela settled in the garden with a bottle of wine and some roll-ups Tom had left in the drawer.

‘Jesus, I thought they’d never leave,’ Gabriela said, pouring Saoirse a glass and lighting up.

‘Who?’

‘The mothers,’ she said, turning the ‘s’ into a hiss.

‘They weren’t that bad,’ Saoirse said, and Gabriela raised her eyebrows.

‘Yeah, well, you don’t know what it’s like.’

‘What what’s like?’

They had both had a few glasses over the duration of the party, and in the sunlight she could see the danger dancing at the side of Saoirse’s eyes in that way she knew so well.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Gabriela said ungracefully, trying to side-shuffle away from whatever it was that was making her tetchy.

‘No, Gabriela. I don’t know what what’s like?’

‘You know, having to hang out with your kids’ friends’ parents.’

Saoirse snorted. ‘Like you’d know either?’

‘Excuse me?’

Saoirse was lighting one of Tom’s roll-ups and when she looked up, she shot Gabriela a look she recognised as one her friend reserved, growing up, for other people. Never her.

‘When was the last time you hung out with Sadie and her friends’ mums?’

The question was very clear and yet she stumbled.

‘Are you serious?’

Saoirse looked at her without replying.

‘Saoirse, is there something you want to say to me?’

Saoirse didn’t rush to answer, but when she spoke it was as though she had been mulling the words over in her mind for years. ‘I just wonder if you should have a think about what you’re doing.’

‘What I’m doing?’

‘About your choices. The kids, they never see you. They’re growing up so quickly … If I had kids, I—’