There was another silence as they registered what she’d said. Kate got up and went to get a glass of wine. There was half of an open bottle of rosé in the fridge, so she helped herself and returned to the table.

‘Where in France?’ Fiona asked.

‘That’s up to him. Somewhere he can get a job and make a life for himself – and that’s easy to reach from London.’

‘So we could visit him, like, every weekend?’ Gus said.

‘I think every weekend would be stretching our resources a bit thin now. He doesn’t have a job and may struggle to find one. He doesn’t speak much French, so far as I know. But every other weekend, perhaps.’

‘You said “we”,’ Fiona chipped in.

‘Like I said, I miss him, too.’

Fiona and Gus looked at each other, bewildered, their hopes and fears fighting for traction. ‘Are you going to get back together?’ Gus asked.

Kate worried that she had gone too far – much too far. But seeing the hope in his eyes – and perhaps it was, after all, only a reflection of her own – she didn’t quite have the courage, or will, to row back. ‘I’d rather not say that, because the truth is I don’t know. I think it’s unlikely. His betrayal hurt terribly and I’m not sure I can ever feel the way I did before.’ She gulped some wine. ‘But I miss him. I’d like to see him – not as a wife, or partner in the first instance, but certainly as your mother. I think we can find our way back to friendship. I don’t know yet whether more than that is possible.’

‘But the door is open?’ Fiona asked.

Kate hesitated. Was it? Was that really true? ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It might be.’

As soon as she uttered the words, Fiona burst into tears and left the room. ‘Yes,’ Gus said, standing and punching the air. ‘Yes! I fucking knew it.’

‘Language,’ Kate said, though she was struggling to wipe the smile from her face.

She followed Fiona upstairs and knocked softly on her bedroom door. ‘Not now,’ her daughter replied, but Kate thought that, for once, she could probably get away with ignoring her. She slipped in quietly and sat beside Fiona on the bed. ‘It’s all right, Mum.’

Kate put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, my love,’ Kate said.

‘For what? There’s nothing to be sorry for.’ Fiona straightened, wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her baggy sweater. ‘You have no idea how much Gus and I have prayed to hear those words.’ She looked at her mother. ‘I hope you meant it. Neither of us could take being let down again.’