Jess was aware of words forming sentences but when she tried to replay them in her head she couldn’t seem to structure them into meaning. “What are you talking about, Mia? Of course you’re applying to Cambridge. You want to study English. That’s been your plan for as long as I can remember.”

“No, that’s been your plan. You’re the one who’s always wanted me to go to Cambridge. You’re the one who’s been talking about it for as long as I can remember. Have you ever even asked me what I want?”

“What’s got into you, Mia? Where’s all this come from?” Jess pressed her foot down hard on the accelerator, watched the speedometer edge over the speed limit.

“Slow down, Jess. Please. Just listen to Mia. Let her explain.”

Jess swerved into the outside lane, felt the pressure in her knuckles as her hands gripped the steering wheel. “Please don’t tell me how to behave with my own daughter. You’ve clearly been party to all this, and for some inexplicable reason have chosen not to tell me, so I’m not really in the mood for maternal advice from you.”

She pulled back into the middle lane, eased her foot off the accelerator, and glanced again in the rearview mirror. As she watched Mia undo her ponytail and retie it, it became perfectly clear to Jess where the idea had come from. “It’s Phoebe, isn’t it? She’s put you up to this. I knew I shouldn’t have let that family anywhere near us. They’re toxic. This is all her idea, isn’t it?”

She sensed the tension in the car thickening, as though an invisible wall were being erected down the middle with Jess on one side, and her mother and daughter on the other.

“For goodness’ sake, Mum, can’t you even credit me with making my own decisions? This has got nothing whatsoever to do with Phoebe. If anything, it’s Granny who’s made me realize that it would be madness to spend my whole life doing something I don’t want to do. I want to make you happy and proud of me, but can’t you just let me do it in my own way?”

There was a heaviness in Jess’s head, like the metal shutters of a migraine being drawn over her eyes. She felt oppressively tired, an overwhelming desire for the world to stop and let her off. “I don’t know what you’ve been saying to Mia, Mum, but whatever it is, please can you tell her that you didn’t mean it, that she’s got it wrong. Please tell her that she needs to apply to Cambridge, just like she’s always planned, even if she’s having a bit of a wobble.”

“I’m not having a wobble. Why can’t you listen to what I’m saying? It’s not my dream to go to Cambridge. It’s yours. You’re the one who’s jealous of the fact that Aunt Lily went to Oxford when you didn’t get the grades for Cambridge. You’re the one who was pregnant by the time you sat your finals and who’s spent the rest of your life regretting it as far as I can see.”