I touched Penny’s shoulder. She was much shorter than me. She had always been squarely built and now, in her contentment, she was putting on weight.

I walked home along the canal towpath. The gates that gave access to it were locked at dusk, but the railings were easy to climb. Muggers and junkies hung out down there, especially in the thick darkness under the bridges, but tonight I wanted the silence and solitude of the path instead of threading the longer way through the busy streets. Lights were reflected as broken tenements of yellow and silver in the flat water, and dripping water echoed my footsteps. The city traffic sounded muffled; the rustle of rats clawing the litter in the rough grass on the land side was much louder. I walked briskly and saw no one.

Lola was on the phone. She mouthed ‘hello’ at me as I came in. When she hung up she said, ‘Mum, that was Ollie. I said I’d go and meet him and Sam for a drink, is that okay with you?’

She had stayed in with Jack, waiting for me to come back. Having her at home in university holidays had great benefits for me, although I tried not to take advantage of this too often. And I was glad that she felt like going out with her friends tonight. She had cried enough for Ted. I smiled at her. ‘Of course it is. Where is he?’

‘He said he was going to bed.’

‘Did he talk to you?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think he didn’t talk to you.’

‘Precisely.’

Lola and I have always discussed almost everything. Once she had forgiven me for leaving her father and got over the extremes of adolescent rebelliousness that followed it, that is. I feared sometimes that because I didn’t have a husband I admitted too many of my anxieties to her, but her response always was that she would rather know what affected me because whatever it was actually affected all three of us. Lola is always level-headed. In her case at least the cycle of family wrongness has been broken. And even her concern about Jack’s oddness wasn’t as deep as mine. ‘Sure, he’s kind of a weird kid. But not as weird as some, believe me. He’ll grow out of the bird thing, and the not talking. Probably when he gets a girlfriend.’

‘I’d just like him to have some friends, let alone a girl.’

‘Mum, he’s okay.’

She picked up her denim jacket now, with its badges and graffiti, and stitched-on bits of ribbon and braid. She was eager to get on her way. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Yes, I am.’ So I didn’t share everything with her.