‘Just Caz and Graham and Mel and Jasper.’

‘Oh. That’s nice.’ After another small silence he said, ‘Well. Goodnight, then.’

‘Goodnight. I love you, you know. You can call me as soon as you want to come home, any time, even if it’s in the middle of the night.’

I wondered if Audrey could overhear what he was saying. Reluctantly I said goodnight again and then he hung up.

Mel was coming up the stairs as I made my way down. ‘Jack?’ she asked me.

‘Yes. What are they doing downstairs?’

‘They’re fine.’ Mel steered me back into the living room and we sat down on the sofa. Her face was shadowed with concern. ‘I met Clare, you know.’

I exhaled. ‘I’m sorry. I should have asked you about it. It’s just that with all this …’

‘I didn’t mean that. Meeting her gave me a new perspective, that’s what I want to say. Because I wanted so damn much for her to like me, I felt disabled. None of the usual strategies was going to work, just because I knew they were strategies and I felt ashamed of employing them. You know … no asking her leading questions about herself, no going for easy girlie ground to make her think I’m her friend. I just wanted to be honest with her, and the sheer effort it took made me suspect that I go about the rest of my life in a mere cardboard two-dimension.’

I smiled. ‘Mel, you’re the most three-dimensional woman I know.’

‘Wait. I’m not fishing for compliments. I got it all wrong anyway. When I met her, she was very cool. Not unfriendly, but holding herself in reserve. And I was second-guessing so hard, trying to be so not over the top, so limpid that she could see straight into the real me, that I forgot to be anything natural at all. We were like a pair of icebergs sailing past each other. Jasper said afterwards that I seemed strained.’

‘Did he?’

‘It was so important, to me and to him, and I was trying too hard not to try too hard.’

I was laughing now, in spite of wanting to take all this seriously.

‘No, listen. I’m telling you this because of Jack and you. Trying to make a go of it with Clare made me aware how difficult all this must be for real parents and I’ve never understood that before. I assumed that liking each other came naturally, after the breast-feeding and before the grandchildren. It was how it happened in our family, but that was luck, wasn’t it?’

‘More like good management.’

‘It’s such a labyrinth. With kids the more you want something to work, the harder you’re likely to try and the more awkward and seized-up the relationship gets. Is that right?’