How could this be happening? She couldn’t take it in. ‘Right,’ she said, her mind reeling. It wasn’t as if she had shut Will out of her or Amelia’s lives – far from it! She had done her best to keep in touch with him, doggedly emailing news and sending Christmas cards to his mum’s address in Newton Abbot at first – PLEASE FORWARD written neatly and hopefully on the envelopes. He had been a poor correspondent in return: the occasional halting phone call, the even more occasional visit where Maggie felt tense the whole time, praying that this time he would fall in love with Amelia; would properly see how wonderful she was and have an about-turn in attitude. His mum, Philippa, did her best to maintain relations, but on the whole Maggie felt cut adrift.

Then, when Amelia was about five, Philippa had died, suddenly and horribly, following a massive stroke and, almost in tandem, Will’s career had gone stratospheric. Suddenly he was off undertaking reportage work in dangerous cities or wildlife series in remote places far from civilization, and contact became even more sporadic. Maggie had sent updates via his photographic agency instead: pictures on birthdays and Amelia’s first day at school, news about piano exams and netball captaincy and great exam results. The edited highlights that said: This is our child. Look how fantastic she is. How can you not want to be part of her life, for heaven’s sake?

It was as if Will had died too, because he hardly ever replied. A birthday present, three months late. An email that seemed to be all about him and how busy he was. A Christmas card with an airmail sticker and exotic-looking stamp, the envelope so battered and creased it was as if the postman had walked it personally to Maggie’s house all the way from Colombia, or wherever Will was these days. (‘Where is my daddy?’ Amelia had said a few times when she was at primary school and discovered that lots of the other children in her class had dads, and brothers and sisters, and pet rabbits and dogs and – oh, all of the things that Maggie hadn’t been able to give her, basically. Good bloody question, she had fumed, trying to cobble together an upbeat response.)

She swallowed hard because Amelia was still looking at her, now with a slight frown as if worried that Maggie was on the verge of collapse. Well, and quite right too, because she was on the verge of collapse all of a sudden, and had to lean against the 600-year-old wall and hope it would stay standing a while longer, at least until she got her breath back. ‘I . . . Gosh,’ she stammered. ‘When did this happen? I mean, how did you even . . . ?’