I hesitate. Sleeping. I haven’t been sleeping very much at all. Maybe I need to tell her that. How bad my sleep has been since … since … The image flashes across my mind again. Maybe if I tell her, she might have some advice, maybe there are even some tablets they can prescribe. Because I’m sure, honestly, that I would feel better if only I could sleep. I don’t think I’d be worrying half as much then.

‘There was a situation at work,’ I begin. Very gently, I cover Charlie’s ears. ‘A tenant – one of my tenants – died in her flat.’

Margaret’s eyebrows lift, just a little. ‘Gosh,’ she says. ‘How awful.’

‘Yes,’ I continue, letting go as Charlie jerks his head. ‘And the circumstances – they shook me and now … If only I could find out what happened, but the police don’t yet seem to know anything, and so I just have it all going round in my head …’

I try to go on. I think I really should say something. Just so she can set my mind at ease. Not about work – what can she do about that? – but about Charlie. Because I’m not all right about Charlie really. Reassurance seeking, they call it, but isn’t reassurance exactly what I need? Margaret could refer us back to experts and I know, I know that they checked last year, they did all kinds of tests with him, but the brain keeps developing until the mid-twenties, I read that on the website too, so these problems, these latent, hidden problems, they could emerge at any time. He was fine last summer, but that was months and months ago, and Margaret and her team never really understood, because I never really told them, the true reason that underlay all my fears …

‘You’re trying to find out …?’ she prompts.

‘No, I’m sorry. It’s not that, I think I need …’ But then Margaret’s phone rings, a frantic, high-pitched jangle.

‘My goodness,’ she says, setting my notes to one side and leaning down to her bag. ‘I’m sorry.’ She pulls out the phone and when she checks the number she frowns. ‘I think I’m going to have to take this. I’m so sorry. May I go in your kitchen?’

She is already shifting her weight to get up. There isn’t much I can do but nod. She goes into my kitchen, where water lies in rivulets all across the worktops, and closes the door behind her. Now it’s just me and Charlie.

He wriggles, and slides down off my lap. There’s a board game left out on the floor that we were playing last night. Snakes and ladders, a classic. ‘Mummy,’ he says, tugging on my trouser leg. ‘Come on, it’s your turn.’