Meanwhile Alison was still talking about the unexpected delivery. ‘She was fine anyway. Little girl, seven pounds ten ounces,’ she said, briskly sweeping the carrot peelings into an empty margarine tub, destined for next door’s guinea pigs. ‘They’ve called her Tallulah – very sweet.’ She took a knife to the bare carrots, fast and efficient, the round wet slices toppling like pennies.

‘Ta-dah!’ came a triumphant cheer from outside just then and they looked out to see Daisy, with dusty knees and a streak of dirt across one cheek, beaming at the newly built woodlice-house before her. ‘They love it!’ she cried. ‘Come and see.’

Out Alison went immediately, exclaiming over Daisy’s cleverness and laughing at the sight of the pale-grey woodlice that, with surprising cooperation, now trundled up and down the twiggy walkways constructed for their benefit. ‘My goodness, and you made all of this yourself?’ Alison cried, and Robyn smiled to see how pleased Daisy looked, her thick red hair falling around her face as she regaled her grandma with a series of new facts.

‘Did you know woodlice have their skeletons on the outside of their bodies, Grandma? It’s called an exoskeleton. They are terrestrial isopod crustaceans,’ she said, stumbling a little over the long words, ‘and—’

‘And they are very, very boring,’ came the disembodied voice of her brother from the hammock. ‘Nearly as boring as you.’

‘They’re not boring! Grandma, tell him!’

Robyn went on shelling peas as her mother sorted out the squabble. Despite her earlier grumbles, in some ways she was glad Alison hadn’t come to the party, she found herself thinking, not least because of how much John had drunk. Robyn had barely been able to manhandle him into the taxi afterwards. This morning his face had been as pale and crumpled as an old paper bag, and he’d seemed very subdued. Was it the hangover causing this quietness or was he brooding about something? Robyn really needed to find a moment to talk to him, try and get to the bottom of whatever was on his mind.

‘The thing I love most about my children,’ Jeanie had once confided in Robyn, ‘is that they’re all so different. John’s the ambitious one. Paula’s loyal. David’s always content. As for Stephen, well, he was a surprise baby and he’s never failed to surprise me since!’

At the time, Robyn had been pleased with the label assigned to her husband – that of ambition. But with ambition came restlessness, she had come to realize; a dissatisfaction with the status quo that sent a person pushing on, endlessly trying to achieve more. Wasn’t it better to be contented, like Dave; to simply enjoy what you had?

‘MUM! I said come and see the house,’ shouted Daisy just then, and Robyn blinked her worries away, before dutifully going out into the sunshine.