‘There was a house fire in Edgbaston. They’re still looking for the husband – he’s missing. The boy’s injured, badly injured, but alive. The wife … she didn’t make it.’ Maggie reached across the gearstick and took her hand.

Robin stared at Maggie’s giant turquoise ring. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘What I’m trying to say … Rob, it’s Corinna.’

Chapter Three

In the raw, disorientated, underground early months of Lennie’s life, Robin had used to wait for Corinna’s key in the door as if they were married. She’d start watching the clock at six, when the shop closed, and she’d imagine where she was now and now and now, picturing her tracking back towards them – the walk up to Notting Hill Gate, the number 94 bus – and then, at last, the rattle of the key, the thud as the carrier bag hit the hall floor. ‘Hello? Lennie? Where’s my favourite girl?’ Normality suddenly, as if it had blown in with Corinna when the door opened. The crushing panic, the waves of What have I done? How the hell am I going to do this? retreated, driven back by a cold bottle of Singha beer from the corner shop and the oven on for jacket potatoes.

To do that for someone. And then – at that age. Even now, years later, Robin thought about it and was amazed. An hour after she’d jumped off the bus hurtling her and the bean that was the start of Lennie towards the appointment at the Marie Stopes clinic, she’d phoned Corinna in Birmingham and by eight o’clock that evening – the first time Robin had ever ordered herself an orange juice at a pub – Rin had been in London, sitting opposite her at the sticky table, stunned but not shocked, not trying to ‘make her see sense’ as Christine had screamed later but talking about how they – they – could make it work.

Over the next few months, Corinna had uprooted her life for them. She’d been on the WHSmith management trainee scheme then and she’d arranged a transfer from the New Street branch to the one on High Street Kensington and, two weeks before Robin’s due date, she’d packed her bags and driven her Ford Fiesta down the M40 to London. She’d lived with them until Lennie was eighteen months old and she’d never once made Robin feel as if she were even doing her a favour. ‘Oh, shurrup,’ she’d said in the Yorkshire accent she put on when dodging anything serious. ‘Helping you? What makes you think I’m not using you? I’d never do this without you – I’m probably going to be in Birmingham forever after this, aren’t I, with Josh and the factory? This is my adventure.’