‘I wanted you, Mummy, but you weren’t here,’ Amelia had wheezed, words that had kept Maggie awake all night, bathed in reproach. The smell of Dettol had retained a particular whiff of blame ever since. (Oh, and the man in question? She couldn’t even remember his name, let alone his face. She had cancelled her account with the dating agency the very next day; lesson learned.)

A few years later she had dipped a toe in the pool once again. Andrew, a supply teacher at school for most of the autumn term, had caught her eye. He was charming and attractive, ten years older than her and shamelessly flirty whenever they were paired together for playground duty. When he asked her for a drink, she’d almost choked on the staffroom coffee in her surprise and delight. ‘Seriously?’ she asked idiotically, feeling herself light up inside like a Christmas lantern. ‘Absolutely,’ he’d replied with a smile that sent her stomach into washing-machine spin cycle.

Oh, Andrew. It had started so well, too. She went out with him three times – twice for drinks and once for dinner – and had felt her old resistance actually starting to crumble in his garrulous, attentive presence. Her heart felt pleasantly fluttery whenever she saw him across the staffroom. Her tummy felt deliciously swoopy as they kissed goodnight at the end of the date. She was even starting to think this might be serious, wondering when she should sleep with him, fantasizing about how it would be. When should she introduce him to Amelia? What might the future hold for the three of them? Horizons were expanding before her, with new possibilities and dreams. They could be a family! Maybe ‘second time lucky’ was really a thing!

Not for her though, it wasn’t. Because shortly afterwards she’d heard him in conversation in the staffroom just before the end of term and everything had changed. The two of them hadn’t gone public about dating – that sort of thing was very much frowned upon by the head teacher – and she’d rather enjoyed the secrecy of their relationship, the subterfuge involved, all those knowing looks and smiles. But then she’d happened to hear Sandra Brewer, one of the French teachers, chatting with Andrew over by the coffee machine. ‘I met your wife the other day – turns out your kids and mine are in the same drama club,’ she’d said, and that was all it took for Maggie’s blood to run cold, for the walls of the staffroom to start pulsing nightmarishly in and out, for her hopes and dreams to crash down to the ground in a shower of brick dust and rubble.