Anyway, she can only imagine what Siobhan would say if Claire admitted that, despite spending twenty-four-seven with Pim because of the lockdown, she feels more distant from him than ever. She’s too ashamed to admit that she often feels, if not lonely, then certainly detached from the fun-loving person she used to be. Her sister would probably say that Claire’s on a rocky road if she fancies going to Aldi more than she fancies her husband. And she’d probably be right.

The Brighton seafront is practically deserted apart from a lone figure who walks across the pedestrian crossing, his shoulders hunched. Claire slows down in the car and waits at the red traffic light and tunes in to the local radio station. There’s an advert on. They want to find community heroes and she feels her own lack of purpose keenly as she meets the kid’s eyes through the windscreen. He looks utterly dejected and, although she doesn’t like to make assumptions about his status, she’d bet he’s homeless.

Not that she can have any kind of conversation with Pim about someone like him, not when he’s incensed at the council paying for hotel rooms for the homeless during Covid. He was appalled that one of their local hotels got trashed, the residents ripping out the fixtures and fittings to sell on, probably for money to score with.

But Claire can’t help thinking of all the things that must have gone wrong for the guy to look so dejected. She watches him shuffling off up Preston Street and she feels guilty at her privilege, for her warm home, for the fact she’s off to buy yet more Christmas food.

The green man on the pedestrian crossing turns to red, but just as she’s setting off, she stalls the car and swears. She’s glad Pim isn’t here to witness her clumsiness. She thinks of her husband lying in bed and feels another guilty pang of regret that she didn’t stay, but no doubt he’ll have gone back to sleep, and she tells herself that he deserves to be there. It won’t be long before he’s back in the classroom and in front of the screen all day again.

He’s found it horrible being at home all the time and, if she’s honest, him being at home hasn’t been a bundle of laughs for her either. She has to pussyfoot around, hardly making a sound, so that Pim can Zoom all day. It’s exhausting trying to be invisible. It’s only supermarket shopping that gives her a break from it all.

But even the thought that she needs time away from her family makes her feel unworthy and wretched. She knows the whole Covid thing has been much worse for the kids, although Ash says he’s happy being at home. But she worries he’s not developing the social skills he should. Much as she loves her baby being her baby, he’s nearly ten and she knows he needs to branch out on his own. Felix is just as much of a worry, and his teenage years suddenly feel all too imminent. He only seems to communicate with her in grunts and she resents the fact that he and Pim spend hours and hours playing Fortnite. And now they’ve corrupted Ash too. But if blowing things up on a screen is what makes them happy and gets them through until life gets a bit more normal, then, according to Pim, they should just go with it. So Claire puts up and shuts up.