‘Are you ready to go?’ asks Layla. She’s got her jacket on and her handbag’s slung over her shoulder.

‘It can’t be that time already, is it?’

I look down at my monitor and see that it’s 12.30 p.m. and time for the lunch I agreed to.

‘Don’t tell me, you’re not going to be able to make it?’ Her hands automatically go up to her hips.

‘She’s going,’ says Claire, the office manager, overlooking her glasses. ‘She’s been miles away today; I reckon she could have gone to Australia and back.’

‘I haven’t got anywhere near what I wanted to do done.’

‘Don’t worry,’ says Claire, ‘it’ll still be here when you get back. Knowing you, you’ll work late anyway.’

Claire’s worked at the company since I was a little girl, and occasionally, like now, I catch her looking at me not as her boss, but as that same little girl who needed telling what to do.

‘Come on.’ Layla flashes a triumphant grin. I know I’d be fighting a losing battle if I tried to protest.

We walk on autopilot to our favourite café tucked along one of the back alleys in town. We always say we should go somewhere different, but we never do.

‘How’s everything with you? Apart from the boys and their birthday lobbying?’

‘Oh, you know. I’m trying to plan the military operation that is also known as the school holidays. The kids do need a break, but six weeks?’

‘What’s in the plan so far?’

‘Let’s see. Both boys want to do a football camp, which will almost require us to take out a second mortgage, but I feel like any opportunity to get them off a screen is worth taking. Then I’m trying to schedule in the grandparents to take them for a couple of days a week, but that’s proving tricky. I tell you, my mum has a more active social life than I do with her lawn bowls and her baking club.’

‘You know, if there’s anything we can do to help, then do say. You could bring the boys into work or if you need to work from home, we could fit around your schedule.’

I think of the summers I spent hiding under one of my parents’ desks, drawing on the old printing paper with the perforated edges with as many highlighters as I could get my hands on.

‘Homeworking is always very welcome, but coming into the office is my break, my sanctuary. Plus, the boys would just be hooked into their devices at home, so the more I can get them out of the house the better. We’ll cope somehow. Sorry for the rant.’

‘Rant away. That’s what I’m here for.’