‘Okay, okay…’ Nina put her hands up, in a ‘stop’ gesture.

‘Well, you get the picture,’ Joanie concluded, her eyebrows riding high on her forehead as she admonished Samir.

Outside someone rattled the door and, finding it locked, moved on.

‘But to do it twice?’ Nina said, as though she wanted her mother’s condemnation. ‘I feel so reckless and foolish.’

‘But last time you used a condom? And even if you didn’t. It’s what? Two mistakes. Fourteen years apart. It’s not ideal, Nina, for the emotional toll on yourself, but it doesn’t make you a bad person, if that’s what you’re getting at.’ She rested her chin on her cupped palm, looking thoughtful. ‘Your Aunty Niamh had one, you know. Before Erin. Before she was married. She had to come over here. I came with her. I would never judge another woman for what they wanted to do. And I would never judge you. Nina, I’m so proud of you. I know we’re not good at talking, you and me. But it can’t have been easy for you when I was nursing and you were with your aunt and uncle. I do get it, you know. I’d come home and you’d always been busy baking with Niamh. Those neat little rhubarb tarts you loved. I knew you’d laboured over them for hours, your little tongue poking out in concentration. I can’t so much as look at a stick of rhubarb without feeling sad. I missed out on a lot. And I regretted it. That’s why I didn’t want to make the same mistake twice with Carey. It pushed me to change. Kind of like what happened with you and Alice,’ she said, gesturing her hand, recalling Nina’s earlier admission. ‘That was when you stopped getting drunk all the time, wasn’t it? And did that course? I wondered what started all that off.’

Nina nodded. Hands clasped round her mug. ‘Do you think I’m making another mistake now?’ she asked.

Joanie considered this carefully.

‘I think you could be happy whichever path you chose. And I think what you’re doing takes courage.’

Joanie stood then and walked around to Nina, and Nina tipped her head against her mother’s torso as she hugged her. It occurred to her that falling pregnant had brought them closer together, but not in the way Nina had expected.

It was Joanie who went with her in the end, and then took her back to the house in Essex where Nina, Joanie, Liam and Carey watched Netflix, Nina clutching a hot-water bottle to ease her cramps. Joanie kept a record of painkillers administered and delivered the best nursing of her life. Alone in her room Nina cried, but deep down she knew she’d made the right decision. And for the first time as she sat in her family’s semi-detached house in Hornchurch, it felt like home.

Ever since then, she’d buried herself in work. She’d missed a couple of weeks on the expansion project and had catching up to do; the pace was picking up as they neared another opening, in Manchester, and she was increasingly being asked for interviews in magazines and podcasts and for her food-styling service at weddings and industry events. Her social media presence had grown and she was nearing fifty thousand followers.