The last few weeks, I thought I’d been working towards a new normal—one where I could drop my guard slightly, leave Bella at playgroup for a few minutes, go out to dinner with the playgroup mums. Relax a little. But now I could see that I was deluded.

I shouldn’t have gone to the playgroup dinner that night. Sitting at that table in the restaurant, surrounded by other grown-ups, I’d felt like I was playing hooky. I should be at home. I should be with Bella. As the waiter refilled our champagne glasses, a guilty delight rushed through me. And everything had seemed so unusual—the golden knives and spoons with their strange shapes, the wooden carvings on the walls, the bamboo mats, the smell of coconut and curry, the banana leaves on the plates. As if I’d never been to a Thai restaurant before.

The Yellowglen had tingled on my tongue, the bubbles helping me to relax. I needn’t have worried about my outfit. Tara and Mel were in jeans, Imogen wore a skirt and Julia was wearing a blue maternity dress, belted above her big belly.

‘I can’t have prawns,’ Julia had announced as the menus were handed out. ‘And nothing too spicy. I’ll get kicked all night.’

The conversation revolved around husbands and kids—topics that we couldn’t always talk about at playgroup with small ears listening. Julia complained that her husband wouldn’t take a whole week off work when the baby was born, and Tara said hers didn’t know how to use the dishwasher. I didn’t want to talk about Marty. At some point, in this small city, Dr Marty was likely to treat their children, or their relatives or friends.

Instead, I asked Tara how she was feeling. Last week at playgroup, she’d been overwhelmed.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I was just wondering if you’re having a better week.’

‘No, it’s fucking worse,’ she snapped. Then she added quickly: ‘Actually, I’m fine. Not a problem in the world. Apart from the seven kilos I have to lose. All my work clothes seem to have fucking shrunk. Ha ha!’

Each time I tried to get a bit closer, she pulled away.

The others hadn’t heard our exchange and were still on the husband topic.

‘Come on, Lexie,’ Julia said, ‘tell us how crap Marty is. Does he know how to use the microwave?’

I delved back into the past for a harmless anecdote. ‘When I first met him, he didn’t know how to make fairy bread. Can you believe that? His eldest daughter used to beg him for it every Saturday and eventually he learnt how.’

‘That’s right, the sixteen-year-old,’ Julia remembered. ‘Did she come down for Father’s Day?’

‘Mmm. She brought a friend along to dull the pain.’