I dismantle all the devices so that they definitely can’t be traced back to this car. I hide everything under the seat and sit there for a minute. Where is this going to end? I’ve set your mother up and she deserves it. I try to recall a moment in my life when she gave a shit about me. I’ve known her since I’ve known you, at first just as my boyfriend’s mother, then as my children’s grandmother. You told me that even when you were a child she was too busy keeping up with the Joneses to notice much. She was certainly like that when I met her. She barely noticed me until it became clear that we would get married.

She mocked me when I told her how I would rather be reading in my room than playing hockey. Or going to discos. She sat impatiently in the audience in our first year at university, just weeks after we met. My Juliet to Jack’s Romeo. Everyone smiled on as we appeared to fall in love before their eyes. I did fall in love with you, but inside I was trembling. I pushed it down so you wouldn’t see it and so that your mother’s warmth and applause would last. She made me feel like that, even then, with her disapproving gaze. I wanted you, but first I had to appease your mother. I should have known then.

The majority of the time she was icy cold. Functional and organised, it was a rare treat that she would laugh and hug you. Her pride lay in impressing other people. Not everyone, just the people she considered to be important.

She never made any secret of the fact that she didn’t think I was a good mother. Right from the start she objected to my Primark baby-grows and second-hand prams. Charlie and Laura would come back from a weekend with her wearing designer children’s wear and clutching a bag of expensive toys. The most surprising thing was her rationale.

‘I just want them to have the same kind of upbringing that Jack had.’