‘Fingers crossed,’ she agreed heartily. And despite having fantasized previously about John dying horribly of some disgusting venereal disease, alone and preferably in a ditch, with rats gnawing at his sweating, pox-ridden body, she was clearly far more mature about everything nowadays, because she actually did want him to find a new job and get himself together, if only for the sake of the children. No, for his own sake, too, she corrected herself more generously, so that he could regain his confidence and move on.

‘Do you think you and Dad might . . . get back together?’ Sam had asked when John had returned to the city, and the hope in his voice had almost been enough to drive a wedge through Robyn’s heart. Of course he wanted his dad back home, and for the four of them to carry on as if nothing had happened; Daisy had asked something very similar too. And sure, once upon a time Robyn probably would have forgiven him and done her best to reassemble a happy family for the sake of everyone else; to keep up appearances as much as anything.

But she was done with faking it these days, and so she had had to dredge up all her courage and tell them the truth as gently as possible. No, Mum and Dad weren’t getting back together. They were still going to be friends (which was stretching said truth, admittedly) and they still loved Sam and Daisy very, very much, but they were going to live in different houses from now on. It would be fine, honestly; she would make sure of that. They were all going to be absolutely fine.

And they were, by and large. Robyn’s heart had been in her mouth when Sam had gone off for his first week at secondary school in his too-big blazer and shiny new shoes, but he had settled in quickly, discovered he loved chemistry (a boy after her own heart) and had been invited along to the basketball-club try-out sessions by the PE teacher. Robyn swore he seemed to be standing taller lately too, as if he was finally appreciating his own height. As for Daisy, she had exhausted her love of insects at long last, and had now moved on to a fascination with the solar system and space exploration. For her birthday a few weeks earlier, they had trekked down the motorway to the National Space Centre in Leicester and it had been, apparently, ‘the best day of my life’.