‘I’m afraid I can’t do that, Franny … Shut up, you noisy little madam!’ Ma turned to shout at Mia who screamed in the corner of the untidy room.

Distressed, Franny clung on to the phone. She spoke gently, appealing, desperate. ‘Ma, please, please, don’t shout at her. She’s only a baby and she’s probably hungry. Have you fed her?’

Nastily, Ma sniffed, burping as she spoke. ‘Who do you think I am? Gordon fucking Ramsay? This ain’t a five-star hotel.’

‘I know, I know, but she still needs to be fed, Ma.’

Ma stared at Mia. ‘Listen here, by the looks of her she’s not only been eating too much, but she’s clearly been spoilt as well. It’ll do her good to know that when she cries people aren’t going to drop everything to run to her. She’ll soon learn. It never did my lot any harm sitting there all day. They soon get tired of screaming.’

Tears ran down Franny’s face as she listened to Mia continue to cry. ‘Ma, I’m begging you, just please, please pick her up.’

‘I ain’t a fucking forklift truck. Now do yourself a favour – stop begging and start talking and maybe that way we can come to some sort of arrangement. Where’s Bree anyway? I would’ve thought she’d be the one calling me.’

Keeping her voice even despite the fact she was trembling, Franny said, ‘She’s too upset … You took her baby, what do you expect?’

Scratching between the folds of fat on her neck, Ma sniffed. ‘But it’s not just her baby, is it? It’s Johnny’s. It’s my son’s baby as well, which means she’s my granddaughter. And he might not be around but that don’t mean I suddenly stop being her granny. And I know my son would’ve wanted me to have her.’

‘You can’t just take other people’s babies.’

Ma snapped, ‘Are you stupid or you just ain’t listening? She isn’t just other people’s, she’s my son’s.’

Franny spoke firmly. ‘Ma, she isn’t though. Mia isn’t Johnny’s baby.’

It was the first time Ma sounded unsure. ‘What do you mean? I may not be Einstein, but it doesn’t take him to work out when Bree fell pregnant. She was still with Johnny.’

Franny sighed, her migraine now pulsating behind her eyes as she thought about what Ma was saying. She remembered that in the beginning Bree had never been entirely sure whose baby Mia was, mainly because of the slight crossover between Alfie and her husband, Johnny. But to her there was no doubt. She knew Mia was Alfie’s. Watching Mia grow she could see her looking more and more like Alfie each day. Mia was the spitting image of her father.