Lizzie distributes the water evenly between the orchids, hangs her coat on a hook shaped like a dog’s tail, and puts her borrowed wellies on a pile of newspapers to dry. She stops in the small bathroom near the front door, the one papered with roses and graffitied with women’s names, to wash her hands before she goes in search of Tess, who is buried in paperwork but looks up at her with a smile as she enters.

‘Aha, there she is! How was the walk?’ Tess puts down her pen, pushes up her glasses and gestures at the chair opposite, an invitation for Lizzie to sit. To talk.

Lizzie remains standing, her hands bunched inside her oversized jumper. She doesn’t want to talk. She just wants Lenny. Her boy. Her sun. ‘It was okay. Maud came back when she was called.’

‘She’s a good egg, that old dog,’ Tess says, and Maud gives an indignant yip from the other room – she’s neither old nor an egg. ‘I bet the fresh air felt wonderful. Nothing like a windy walk to blow away the cobwebs. Won’t you sit?’ Tess flaps a bloused sleeve at her.

‘I need to pick Lenny up from Kids’ Club.’ It’s true, but it sounds like an excuse. A part of her is missing when they are not together. Without the constant anxiety that comes with a daredevil seven-year-old boy, Lizzie’s brain becomes full of the things she doesn’t want to think about. Decisions she’s not ready to make. She is crocheted without him, full of holes.

Tess’s eyes are bright and quick as they assess her. Lizzie knows she’s not doing what Tess wants. Tess wants her to share her feelings. Talk about the vastness of the sea and how wonderful it was to ‘go out without fear’. But Lizzie will never go out without taking fear with her. It’s her constant companion, faithful as a dog. Lizzie knows Tess wants her to explain the bags under her eyes and the flesh missing from round her nails, where she picks and peels until she bleeds. Tess wants to know why Lizzie favours one arm.

Lizzie imagines Tess thinking that Lizzie couldn’t tell her anything she’s not heard before, couldn’t show her any bruise or scar she hasn’t already seen. Tess is wrong.

‘So, can I go now?’ Lizzie says, then tacks ‘please’ onto the end. She sounds like Lenny. Sounds like the kids she used to teach. Now she feels like one herself.