My parents still live in the small, semi-detached house in Surrey where I grew up. Under an hour by train from London Bridge station, they get pretty much the same weather as I do.

‘Same here, Daddy. It’s been very wet.’

Next, my father will ask about my work. Then he will finish our conversation briskly.

‘And how’s work?’

‘Work is fine, thank you.’

‘Jolly good. I’ll put you back to your mother. You take care now.’

My father doesn’t wait for me to say goodbye and I don’t take offence. I love him enormously, but we can both do without the phone chats my mother cajoles us into. This morning, in particular, I appreciate the brevity. The phone passes between my parents.

My head throbs. My bladder is fit to burst. If I mention I don’t have to go into work today, my mother will natter at me for hours.

‘I must say, Grace, aren’t you a bit old to be waking up with a hangover?’ she jumps straight into. ‘Isn’t it time you settled down?’

‘You mean get married, move to Redhill and have babies?’

‘Why not? I could help you more if you lived closer.’

For starters, Jordan and I haven’t come close to a conversation about marriage, let alone babies. My mother’s vision of settling down isn’t an offer that’s available to me, even if I wanted it, and I don’t want it. The thought of motherhood doesn’t fill me with the joys of spring. My ovaries aren’t tick-tocking like Big Ben beside my uterus. Babies aren’t yet on my agenda. Apart from being terrified about what they’ll do to my body, stretching and tearing me in places I don’t wish to imagine, there are practicalities to consider. For instance, I’m still renting. And my rented flat has only one bedroom, so there isn’t room for a nursery. I also don’t have a lot of savings for all the things that babies require, including day care. I’m only thirty-three. If forties are the new thirties, why, I’d be practically a teen mum if I had babies now, which doesn’t appeal. Faith is steadfastly single, so there’s no peer pressure. And let’s not forget, at the moment, I’m not even having sex.

‘I’m not having children until my forties, Mummy. Like you,’ is all I say.

‘I could be dead by then,’ she warns me.

‘Well then, you won’t be much help.’

We both laugh. My mother is not without a cracking sense of humour.

‘Mummy, I must go. I’m not yet out of bed.’