‘I was sure it would be another girl,’ Gabriela whispered to Tom as their son blinked up at the world, their eyes meeting for the first time. He reminded her of an exotic bird fallen from its nest, a creature to which she had no more immediate connection than that of an anthropologist exploring new and treacherous lands.

She agreed to take the full year’s leave after Callum was born, on Tom’s request. He had been offered a job working on a residential project in Islington, with Jim. He had been so desperate to do it, and she had been keen to let him. She didn’t want to always be the one calling the shots, and it was Tom’s turn. Besides, she reasoned, she might enjoy it, the extra time with the kids, long walks on the Heath, building up a bond with Callum before heading back to work for good.

But within days of agreeing to it, the resentment started to build like a wall in her chest. Storming the streets of Dartmouth Park and Gospel Oak in those early weeks, desperate to get Callum to sleep, his relentless wailing rising from the double-buggy, for a moment she considered pushing the whole thing into the road. She didn’t, but the fact that in that moment she had wanted to was enough to scare her, to prove that she had that in her, just below the surface. How easy, she thought, it would be to cross the line from which there was no return.

‘He can smell your milk, that’s all,’ the health visitor said by way of comfort when she confided that she felt constantly hounded by him.

‘Is it true that boys tend to be more needy?’ she asked, desperate for confirmation that it wasn’t a reflection of something she was doing wrong.

‘I mean, they’re babies. They are needy, because you’re their mother – they need you to survive.’ She said it as if it was the most simple thing in the world. It was ironic, she thought, that with the birth of her children, Gabriela should be granted the most powerful role in the world, and yet it was a role that made her feel completely and utterly impotent.

When Madeleine called to say she was in town and would Gabriela like to meet for lunch, it was like being offered a reprieve. She practically counted down the minutes to their meeting, which took place at Daphne’s, an old family-run restaurant in an unassuming spot in the backstreets of Camden Town, roughly equidistant between her house and Madeleine’s flat in Marylebone.