My husband puts a plate in front of me. The dinner looks lovely but, suddenly, I want to cry. I think of everyone going to Peru, except me. I remember both Bobs and Ellen wailing those same words to me as children: ‘But everyone else is going . . .’ And that’s how I feel now. That’s exactly how I feel. Everyone else is going except me! Does no one hear my silent cry?

I pick up my knife and fork and then put them down again – a bit too abruptly it seems, as I make my family jump.

‘Do something with your lives,’ I blurt out.

My children and my husband look up from their pork chops and new potatoes, startled.

‘Ellen. Bobby. Both of you. Before it’s too late. Go to exotic places. Do exotic things. Sow your wild oats. Try parachuting. Dance naked in the rain. Go scuba-diving. Go to work every day loving your job. Live life to the full. You never know when it might be your last!’ I look at their terrified faces. ‘Enjoy your chops!’

There’s a stunned hiatus at the table.

Ellen glances at her brother and father uncertainly and then is the first to speak. Her voice is hushed. ‘Are you going to die, Mum?’

‘No,’ I say. But I burst into tears anyway.

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

‘Eat your dinner,’ Greg says to the kids. ‘I’ll take your mum outside for a bit of fresh air.’

My husband helps me from the table and steers me gingerly into the garden as if I might break. Ellen comes out with a glass of water for me and then retreats hastily.

I sit on the brick wall that divides the patio from the small lawn. Greg sits down next to me. He looks like he might put his arm round me, but then he doesn’t. ‘Mind telling me what that was all about?’

I sniff my tears away. ‘Nothing, nothing. Just me being silly.’

‘You scared the life out of us all,’ he says.

‘Sorry. Sorry. It was stupid of me.’

‘Is there really nothing wrong with you?’

‘No.’ Nothing that an adventure, a bit of excitement, a trip to Peru wouldn’t cure. Then it comes to me. If I can’t go to Peru, then I could go somewhere else.

‘Why don’t we go away this weekend?’ I turn to my husband and take both of his hands in mine. They’re strong, workworn now. ‘Just the two of us. Let’s just take off somewhere.’

He looks alarmed. ‘It wasn’t you that wanted to do the parachuting thing you mentioned in that rant?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘No. No. Though would it be such a bad idea?’

His expression tells me that it would.