‘I might pick it up again once I’ve had the baby,’ Mum said. ‘When we’re settled in the new house, and I’ve begun to get to know people.’

‘Oh, I don’t suppose that’ll be necessary,’ Ingrid said. ‘You’ll be able to concentrate on being a mother. I’m sure that’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?’ She got to her feet. ‘Now, how about some lunch? I’ve got some smoked salmon. I thought it might be a nice treat. And we do have rather a lot to celebrate. I do hope you can eat it, Jenny? I lose track of what they say pregnant women can have these days.’

‘I think it’s all right,’ Mum said, not looking particularly sure.

‘Good. Then let’s eat.’

We moved over to the table. Ingrid whisked away the covering cloths and went off to the kitchen to get the smoked salmon out of the fridge. She was the kind of person who had butter in a proper butter dish, with a proper butter knife, and crystal glasses and napkins in antique silver napkin rings.

Ellie and Mum and I sat there in silence, as if we had no idea what to begin to say to each other. Mum was staring into space, and Ellie might as well not have been there at all. It was as if she’d decided that the only way to get through lunch was to fade into non-existence.

And that was when I realised how close the three of us had been, once… all those years when I’d thought our lives were really awful, when we were moving from one rented flat to another and Sean was being useless and there was never any money and one thing would break after another – the telly, the kettle, the soles of Ellie’s shoes. A seemingly endless sequence of little disasters that required the spending of money we didn’t have.

And yet we hadn’t been broken. We’d been unbreakable. A perfect equilateral triangle, each one of us balanced out by the other two.

And now?

We’d splintered. An impartial observer who’d been parachuted in to sit at that table would have concluded that we were almost entirely disconnected from each other. And I could only see that it was going to get worse.

Mum had her fiancé, her new baby… Ingrid to keep happy… her other half’s other child to try not to think about. All that was going to take up energy and time, and there would be next to nothing left for us.

And I had my big plans for the future: university, a career, money. Plus I had Jake to see me through everything that was wrong with now. Meanwhile, Ellie seemed to have withdrawn into some remote attic of her imagination. She’d always had a tendency to get overwrought, but this strange, fraught little scene appeared to have done for her completely.

Still, I wasn’t responsible for her, was I? There was a limit to what I could do. I wasn’t the one making decisions about her future. I was her sister, the one she was still sharing a room with. Not her mother.