“You sound weird. What’s that noise?”

“Birdsong.”

“Birdsong?”

“Yes. Isn’t it soothing?”

“What about me failing my exam?”

“You’re not going to fail your exam, love.”

“You sound so certain.”

“That’s because I am.” And I really am. I’m positive. It’s nice actually. It’s a very filling feeling.

“And,” I add, since I seem to be on a roll, “I know you and Philip will make up because you always do.”

“He called me self-absorbed,” she says, indignant.

“Do you want me to deal with him?” I ask her, and she laughs down the line. This was always a bugbear of the girls when they were children. My refusal to deal with their friends when there was a falling-out. They’d come into the house with their tales of woe and I’d wipe away their tears and tell them that I’d be out shortly to deal with whoever wasn’t playing nice.

And they’d go back out, fortified by the knowledge that their mother would be out shortly to deal with whoever needed to be dealt with.

And I’d carry on cleaning or cooking or ironing or whatever it was they’d interrupted me doing, and they’d forget about the argument and their need for me to deal with people.

And one day, when Anna was about ten and the four of us were eating around the dinner table, she suddenly fixes me with a look as realization cracks like an egg inside her head. “You never deal with people, Mum,” she said.

“You sound in great form,” says Anna, surprised.

“I am,” I say, also surprised. “I’m having a lovely time.” Isn’t that strange?

“Are you at home?” I ask then.

“Yeah. I thought you might be back. I was hoping for pancakes.”

Pancakes are Anna’s go-to for comfort.

“You could make them yourself. They’re easy.”

“They wouldn’t taste the same,” Anna says, with a pout in her tone.

“Where’s Dad?” I ask, pressing the phone against my ear a little harder, holding it a little tighter. I should have phoned him.

“I don’t know,” says Anna. “He’s not here.”

I look at my watch. “He should be home by now. He’s always home by this time.”

“Maybe he’s done a runner like you,” says Anna.

“I haven’t done a runner,” I say. Although I have. Sort of.

“When are you coming home?”

“Soon,” I say, which is better than “I’m not sure.”

“Soon?” Anna repeats. “If you want the house put back together by the time you get home, you’d better be more specific.”

“Why? What’s wrong with the house?”

“It’s a shambles.”

“So long as it’s still standing, that’s the main thing,” I say, although my pulse quickens at the mention of the word “shambles.”

“You’re being very Zen.”

“It’s just a house,” I say.

“In a shambles,” Anna says with emphasis on the shambles.

“Maybe you could tidy up a bit?”

“Mum! I’m studying for my finals! And I can’t find that library book that’s overdue.”

“Is it Kant’s Theory of Form: An Essay on the ‘Critique of Pure Reason’?”