I wanted to say, It can’t be. But I couldn’t. Because what did I know? Nothing. Nothing at all.

I said, ‘So how do we find out for sure?’

‘It’s not a quick process, I’m afraid. After this visit I’ll send a copy of my report to your family doctor and recommend further investigation. Your doctor will need to write a referral. Then you’ll get an outpatient appointment from the community paediatrics team at the hospital in Oxford. Depending on how that goes, you might be offered a full assessment. That’s when you could potentially be given a diagnosis.’

I don’t know how it happened. My mug somehow slipped from my fingers. Before I knew it I was looking down at a puddle of tea and bits of broken china on the floor.

Then I was apologising and soaking up the spill with kitchen paper and Daisy had emerged from the living room to find out what all the commotion was about. She was twiddling something furiously between her hands – a wooden spoon she’d decorated with stuck-on hair and eyes at pre-school to make a kind of puppet, though she’d never actually played with it as such. Then she stopped twiddling and reached for my stomach, as she sometimes did for reassurance, and I found myself glaring at Mary as if she might be about to criticise me as Mark had. Because if this was a way I could give Daisy the comfort she needed, why on earth would I listen to anyone who might tell me to make her stop?

When Mark came home that evening I tried to tell him about the visit.

He said, ‘Look, I can’t talk about this now. I need to email a couple of clients. Will you call me when dinner’s ready?’

And with that he withdrew to his little office at the end of the kitchen, and shut the door.

After dinner Daisy settled down in the living room with the keyboard that played ‘Greensleeves’, and Mark grimaced and said, ‘So much for a nice relaxing evening.’

‘At least she’s happy,’ I said, putting the pot on the hob with coffee.

Mark sighed. He’d just cleared the table, which was something he always helped with, though he would never fill or empty the dishwasher, or wash up; those were my jobs.

‘I quite fancied watching some telly, but I won’t be able to hear a thing,’ he said. ‘Guess I’ll have to wait till you’ve got her in the bath. Or watch it on my laptop in the office.’

I decided to ignore this. ‘Mark… is now an all right time to talk to you for a minute?’

He was instantly wary. ‘Talk to me? What about?’

‘I wanted to tell you about the visit we had today,’ I said. ‘The teacher who came round, she said…’ My heart was racing. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get the words out. ‘All the twiddling Daisy does, you know, the way she rolls things around between her hands – apparently that could actually mean something.’