There was definitely a hint of accusation in her voice.

‘How was the baby shower?’

I helped myself to a handful of sugared almonds and began filling bags.

‘Good.’ I replied, popping one of the sugared almonds in my mouth. ‘Mum, how did you know you wanted to marry Dad?’

She grabbed another dozen bags, pulled them all open at the top and gave me a look. ‘Is this because your dad told you I was pregnant when we got engaged?’

‘No,’ I replied in between sucks on the sweet. I’d forgotten how awful these things were. ‘But also yes.’

‘I didn’t marry your dad because I was pregnant, I married your dad because I loved him,’ Mum answered. ‘Fancied him too, which I suppose is how I got in trouble.’

‘“Got in trouble”,’ I repeated, chomping down on the almond. ‘Thank god we don’t say that any more.’

‘You wait until you’re pregnant and you’ll find out how much bloody trouble it is,’ she said, slapping my hand away from the bag of sweets. ‘Thirty-two years later and I’m still in trouble.’

‘I just wanted to see if both flavours are equally disgusting,’ I whined, feigning hurt and rubbing my hand. ‘Why do we even have these?’

‘It’s good luck,’ Mum answered. ‘And I wanted them at the first one but your nan said we couldn’t have them because they’d break her teeth.’

‘And they won’t break them this time?’

‘They might,’ she replied with a wicked smile.

‘So you just knew?’ I said, abandoning my task and lying back on the living room carpet. ‘That you were going to marry him?’

Mum looked up at the living room ceiling and smiled a smile that was far too happy for someone who was contemplating some really quite dodgy Artexing.

‘The first time your dad kissed me, I felt like I was floating,’ she said. ‘It felt like we were the only two people on earth who knew this incredible secret and I never wanted it to stop.’

‘Gross,’ I muttered.

‘You asked.’ Mum put down her stack of little voile bags and gave me a good, hard, maternal stare. ‘What’s going on? You’ve only been back two minutes, surely there isn’t a proposal in the offing?’

I took a deep breath and looked at her, my mouth clamped shut.

‘Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,’ she trilled, one of her all-time favourite quotes. ‘Out with it.’

‘Do you remember Patrick? The one I was seeing before I left?’

She reached for her cup of tea as though it were something stronger. I wondered, for just a moment, if it was.

‘You do remember him then.’

‘I do,’ she replied in a tone that suggested that, while she remembered, she did not necessarily approve.

‘We’ve been seeing each other again.’

‘Right.’

‘My friends aren’t especially impressed.’