Frankie was losing her, she thought in dismay. ‘He still has massive tantrums sometimes, you know,’ she found herself blurting out. ‘His shoes cost a bloody fortune. He wets the bed if he has a nightmare.’

‘Right, so you’re trying to put me off my own kid. That’s nice. That’s charming. Whatever.’ Julia began walking away, her back stiff and haughty, and the encounter seemed to be slipping through Frankie’s fingers.

‘I just want you to know, that’s all,’ Frankie yelled out across the café, and several people in there stopped what they were doing to stare. ‘It’s not that easy! Sometimes it’s the best thing ever, but sometimes it’s really hard work!’

Julia wheeled round, eyes like gimlets. ‘Fuck you. He’s my child.’

Now everyone was staring at them. The guy in dungarees behind the counter even bookmarked his Brecht in order to pay full attention, just as Julia stormed out, letting the door crash shut behind her. Frankie put her hot, red face in her hands and wished she could rewind the entire morning so that none of this had happened.

Shit. She had blown it. She had made the situation a million times worse, not only for her, but for Craig and Fergus, too. And now Julia might step things up and fight harder than ever for Fergus, and Frankie wouldn’t be a mum any more. The thought made her nauseous. Her pulse throbbed where adrenalin was pinballing around her system, and dismay crashed through her. How could she have been so stupid, so impulsive? How could she have staked everything she held dearest on this one foolhardy throw of the dice?

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

‘Victoria? It’s Robyn Mortimer. How are you?’ Today was officially Bite-the-Bullet day, Robyn had decided. Following the cheerleading we-can-do-this conversation with her mum, she had dug out a contact number for her old boss, the inimitable Professor Victoria Tomlinson, former Sydneysider-turned-Yorkshirewoman. Now, seizing a quiet moment in her lunch-break at school, she had apprehensively punched the number into her phone.

‘Robyn Mortimer! Good to hear from you, darl. I’m very well and lying on a sun-lounger in Tuscany, thank you very much. How are you?’

‘Oh! You’re on holiday? I’m so sorry – this can totally wait until you get back then,’ Robyn gabbled, not wanting to irk the one person whose good books she needed to access. She’d walked to the top of the school playing field so as to get some privacy, and made an oh-no-you-don’t gesture at a couple of Year Ten girls who were sloping that way, cigarette packs in hand. It would be the end of term on Friday and she felt as if the entire school, staff and kids alike, was easing towards the finish line, rules and regulations gladly discarded in their collective wake.