‘Adam, is that you?’ She waits a second. ‘Adam? Adam? Look, whoever this is, stop ringing me or I’ll call the police,’ she shouts. At that moment an apple falls in front of her, thudding on the roof of Jamie’s playhouse. The line goes dead and she’s left startled at the falling missile. ‘This tree has to come down,’ she says aloud. The parasol is flapping round and round in a circle, casting a long shadow on the ground.

In the morning, Alison walks the dog around the block before the tree surgeon arrives. On the way home, she runs through her argument with Adam on the last day she saw him. Breakfast TV sparked it off. A couple were having a beach wedding in Jamaica. She said that could be them one day. Except she thought she’d said it under her breath, but Adam slammed his mug of tea down, sloshing it over the table.

‘I thought I made it clear,’ he said, an icy edge to his voice. She switched the television off. Jamie stopped eating.

‘Jamie, eat up.’ She followed Adam into the hallway.

‘Are you saying you won’t ever marry me?’ she asked.

‘That’s right.’ He put his jacket on, his back to her.

‘But we always said we would. I mean Jamie and the new baby need security. What’s changed?’

Adam lowered his face close to hers, teeth clenched. ‘You’ve sucked every single penny out of me, what security do you think a piece of paper will give you?’ He’d slammed the front door behind him, leaving her in a swirling gust of air.

She’d never seen him like that before. It wasn’t the Adam she fell for. He sounded more and more like her father. When they were first together, they talked all the time about getting engaged, running away to get hitched so her father didn’t find out. He’d been full of it then, told her they could run away to Gretna Green and he’d found a place that sold decent second-hand wedding dresses. He’d been more happy-go-lucky then. Full of big plans about their future. The house he wanted to build. It was his idea for them to get matching tattoos. A and A. They were a team. He made her feel safe. For the first time in her life she hadn’t been scared of her father anymore, but that hadn’t lasted.