In the end, she had to extract the apology from Ronnie. He finally mumbled a sorry, Nanna. Maybe she shouldn’t have forced the issue. She’d read online that most children his age did not yet have the empathy that was needed for a real apology. Parenting articles blithely suggested alternatives, such as asking the toddler to offer help to the wounded party. One had described, as an example, a child at a playground being prompted to say to another child, ‘Are you hurt? Can I get you a wet towel?’ And Nina could not imagine a universe in which Ronnie would say that.

That evening, however, he did say something that surprised her. ‘Mama, I want to go back to London.’

She looked down at his upturned face, briefly lost for words. She had always lazily assumed that her son would love Australia: the open space, the beaches, the outdoorsiness of it.

‘Soon, Ronnie,’ she said with a sinking heart. Then she took him upstairs and read him The Wind in the Willows.

There seemed to be no end to this wood, and no beginning, and no difference in it, and, worst of all, no way out.

Onion sauce! Onion sauce!

It shouldn’t have been so surprising that he would want to go back to London. He had his routines there, his friends, the fox cubs in the garden. It was where they had their lives as a family. It was where Nina had her friends, her work. It had taken a while to establish herself there, but now that she had, doors were starting to open. People were taking notice, especially after her credit on the comedy series. None of this had come easily. It hadn’t happened overnight. It was the result of a lot of hustling, countless coffees and mentorships, the usual long apprenticeship for overnight success.

The next morning, she opened an email from her agent in London. He was writing with big news: Nina had won a grant from the British Film Institute to develop her feature film. Nina blinked at the screen and read her agent’s words again, not quite able to believe them. She had put in the application so long ago she had almost forgotten about it. The grants were tightly contested and it had seemed too much to hope that she might win. The film was a psychological thriller about a romantic getaway gone wrong. Now her agent was asking her to write a treatment of the film so he could send it to investors. Reading this, Nina paused, suddenly deterred. In normal circumstances, she would start work on the treatment straight away. Aim to make a good impression, show she was on the job.

But she couldn’t do it now. Not this week; there wasn’t time.

She would do it soon, she wrote back.