The director called something to the lead camera operator and Jess looked around the crew, thinking about the career she had fallen into through necessity rather than choice, a career other people seemed to imagine was glamorous, ignoring the unsociable hours, the disruptive travel, the egos she worked with. All these years later, she still couldn’t resist the fantasy that perhaps, had she never got pregnant and moved in with Iain, she might now be sitting in the office of a major newspaper, commissioning articles about artists, scientists, politicians, or captains of industry, rather than standing in a muddy field worrying about parking permits and traffic noise.

Sometimes Jess felt as though she’d exited, stage left, from her own life many years ago, but no one in the audience had noticed.

“Right, everyone, let’s take a break. Back on set in fifteen. Charlie and Lucia, can I have a word?”

As Justin swung his arms around the shoulders of his lead actors and steered them deeper into the field, the crew melted away.

“Are you coming for a drink tonight, Jess? There’s a pub Steve spotted nearby that looks half decent so a few of us are going for a couple of pints when we finally wrap.”

Jess shook her head as she and Paul—a cameraman she’d known for ten years and one of the few colleagues she’d describe as a friend—set off toward the catering truck. “Thanks for asking but I’ve got loads to do this evening.”

“It’s Saturday night, you can’t just go home. Come on, loads of us are going—me, Steve, Ray, John, Milly, Lexi. It’ll be a laugh.”

Jess thought about sitting around a pub table, having a drink and a packet of crisps, gossiping about the day’s events with people who would be her colleagues for another four weeks, and suddenly she was answering before she could stop herself. “OK, then. Just a quick one. That’d be nice, thanks.”

“Great. It doesn’t have to be a late night. Wait there—I’ll go and get us both a cup of tea and a couple of pastries if there are any left.”

Paul wandered off while Jess pulled her mobile phone from her pocket and switched it on. As it blinked into life, a series of notifications pinged onto the screen.

Four missed calls, four new voice messages, all from Mia. Jess didn’t need to listen to them to know something was wrong.

She pressed down hard on Mia’s name to return the call. There was less than one complete ring before it was answered.

“Mum, why haven’t you been answering your phone? I’ve been calling you for ages. You need to come now. It’s Granny.”

Chapter 27

Audrey

Audrey slid her eyes from left to right, a simple enough movement yet one that sent a sharp pain shooting across her forehead.

“How are you feeling now, Mum? You gave us such a scare.”

Sitting on one side of the hospital bed holding her hand, Lily was looking unusually harried: a faint smudge of mascara bruised the skin under one eye and strands of hair poked out from a makeshift bun. Phoebe stood on the other side of the bed, both of them smiling with a forced cheerfulness that made Audrey nervous. From the busy ER corridor outside the cubicle, she could hear machines beeping, phones ringing, doctors calling out names of medicines, nurses issuing instructions to orderlies.