I lifted Daisy on to my lap. ‘Oh, I will,’ I said with such determination that Lisa looked puzzled. ‘I shall be round there like a dose of salts.’

By the time I got home it was after seven o’clock. I was two hours later than usual. My mother was waiting for me.

‘He’s out,’ she said drily. ‘I gave him a meal, and he’s gone to have a drink with someone from the paper.’

I felt myself breathe easier.

‘Thank you, Mummy. I’m very grateful.’

She looked sternly at me. ‘Why are you so late?’

‘I called in to see Lisa Turnbull on the way back.’ I tried to enlist Mummy’s support. ‘I needed to talk to her. Was Douglas getting very impatient?’

‘I think for your sake it’s a good job he went out. He was very short with me.’ She relented for a moment. ‘You look tired. It’s a lot, all this back and forth to see Olivia. I’ve got some soup over – would you like some?’

I could have wept with gratitude. She sat with me in the kitchen as I ate.

‘How is Olivia?’

‘They’re giving her electric shock treatment.’

Mummy winced. ‘What a terrible thing.’

I nodded, my eyes filling. I looked down into my soup bowl, not finding it easy to show emotion in front of Mummy.

Suddenly, not looking at me, she said resolutely, ‘It’s no good. If you don’t put Douglas and your marriage first you’re soon going to be in trouble. You can’t neglect him. He needs your attention . . .’

‘Look – I do want to put it first,’ I protested. ‘I do. But I love Olivia too. And Douglas – ’ I broke off, the frustrations of the past months welling up in me. Cheeks hot and red, I tried to talk. ‘He’s so possessive you see, and insecure. And it’s partly because – ’ I stumbled over the words. ‘We have – there are some difficulties . . .’

My mother held up her hand abruptly. ‘Problems in the bedroom are between you and him. It’s your marriage. None of that’s anyone else’s concern. And anyway,’ she added, ‘he’s managed to get you pregnant at least.’

I remembered Joyce Salter quite well. I had called to see her after the baby was born about a month before VJ Day. She lived with her mother in court nine, Stanley Street, and had told me that her husband had been called up for National Service. Thinking back to her delicate, pretty features, I could see what Alec Kemp would have found attractive about her.

Nervously I waited at her door, trying to prepare what I might say. I understood how she’d feel about me barging in to ask the identity of her baby’s father. She would most likely find my questions odd and insulting.

Fortunately she was alone with the child, so I didn’t have to contend with her mother, a mean woman whose features must once have resembled Joyce’s, but had since spread and roughened.