It was that twinkly time of year, darkness falling earlier, candelabras glowing in windows; ten-foot-high piles of Brussels sprouts and turkeys gliding along the motorway. The loss of her closest friendships remained a raw, open wound. She swung between cursing herself for her stubbornness, for leaving it so long to get in touch, to anger at the way they had left Paris without her and not a backward glance – or text message – in her direction. But she ached for them too. Ached for the easy shorthand between them, the lack of formality when they were together, they way they fitted. Part of her had known, instinctively, that while she might not always have Ted in her life, she would always have those women. They had known each other before, and they would know each other after. That was the creed at the heart of their friendship. They were bonded for life, from that very first moment in the toilets at Le Crillon. And how apt was that? A luxury hotel but the three of them in the loo. That’s just us! She smiled to herself even as tears streamed down her cheeks but her smile faded to a frown. How had they let this happen? Why had they abandoned her? And she hadn’t had to cope with just them, there was Ted, leaving her as soon as she got home; Mr Hough leaving school the next day. But the biggest loss of all had been her friends. She hadn’t seen it coming and she’d never understand.

She was almost home when a call came through via the car’s audio system. She recognised the number immediately: it was the school.

‘Mrs Astor?’ The headmaster’s voice was grave and Alice instantly felt the cold that surrounded the car sink into the interior and into her bones. ‘There’s been an incident at school today. Charlotte kicked a chair and knocked over a table following a simple request. Fortunately no one was injured but I’m afraid we’re going to have to exclude her for the rest of the week.’

She called Nate on the hands-free, not with the hysteria that had gripped her when Mr Sharp had threatened Charlotte with exclusions in the past, but with a deep sense of dread in the pit of her stomach: this was how it would be for Charlotte now. The roundabout of exclusions and reduced timetables, all designed to fit her unique, beautiful, diverse, square-peg daughter into an inflexible, mainstream round hole. Every time it happened, its message to Charlotte was the same: you are not enough. What can it do to a person being told that by the very system that should support them to flourish and grow?

‘This world isn’t built for her,’ she whispered, tears leaking from her eyes, the raw gutting pain of that statement overwhelming.

She would never forget his voice in the car, the way it soothed over her anxieties and gave her hope for the future.

‘So let’s build a new world,’ he said.