‘He’s good-looking, he’s gentlemanly. And he loves Lennie, obviously.’

Robin thanked god she’d told no one bar Rin what he’d said about adoption. Christ, if her mother knew.

‘He’s got a good job, hasn’t he?’ said Christine. ‘Well paid?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘If you’d got married, he could have helped with the school fees. And you wouldn’t have had to move back here at all; you’d be living with him, wouldn’t you? Elena said he’s got a lovely house, a garden, and—’

Robin felt blood rush to her face. ‘What are you suggesting, Mum? Apart from that this is all my fault.’

‘I’m not suggesting it’s your fault, Robin. Who else’s fault could it be?’

For a moment, she didn’t trust herself to speak. Yes, of course it was her bloody fault. But again, when you were an actual agent in the world, that was how it worked: you made the decisions and you lived with them; good or bad, they were yours. Much easier to let someone else take responsibility. ‘So,’ she said, ‘you think I should have married Adrian to bankroll my life? To get a house and have him pay my child’s school fees?’

‘Why do you have to do that? Why do you have to make everything sound so … vile?’ her mother hissed. ‘He loves Lennie – don’t you think he might have liked to have done that for her, got pleasure from it? Don’t you think he might have enjoyed sharing his life with you both? But no, you don’t think like that, do you? It’s all you, you, you – what you can achieve, how you can do it all by yourself.’

‘So I should have sold myself, you’re saying? Done a deal? Let him pay for everything because he loves me. Isn’t that prostitution? Safely middle-class, socially acceptable prostitution.’

They stared at each other, Robin’s chest burning with feeling. So much she wanted to say, to ask: I’ve worked so hard, Mum, to provide for Lennie, to make a success of things. To prove to her that we – women – can. Even if you disapproved when I had her, isn’t that something? An achievement? Aren’t you proud of me at all?

Her mother huffed, a short jet of air from the nose, then turned her back.

‘Go to work, Robin. Please.’

Five minutes later on Wake Green Road, Robin stopped the car and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. Her head was pounding, the start of a monster headache. She took a couple of Anadin with a swig of stale-tasting water from a bottle in the door. Screwing the lid on, she saw pronounced veins in the backs of her hands. Maybe she’d have a stroke – that felt like a logical next development.