‘Hello?’ Frankie called, wandering through to the kitchen. ‘Oh,’ she said in surprise, seeing an unfamiliar woman at the table. Her brain simultaneously registered two separate facts – one, that the woman looked very relaxed there, leaning expansively against the radiator with her legs crossed at the ankles. The second fact was how much the woman looked like Fergus: the exact same dark curly hair, the same olive skin, the same pretty Cupid’s-bow mouth. And then Frankie’s blood ran quite cold because she knew, without question, that this was surely Julia, Craig’s ex-girlfriend, back from the unknown. ‘Hi,’ she said, her mouth dry, as the visitor gave her an appraising look.

‘Hi,’ the woman replied, and for a horrible moment it felt to Frankie as if she were the guest in the situation, that this was still Julia’s flat, and she merely an interloper. No wonder Craig’s ex looked so at home here, lounging against the radiator in that way, when she’d lived here herself for years, long before Frankie had arrived on the scene.

‘Um,’ said Craig, who looked similarly discomfited, ‘Frankie, this is Julia. Julia, Frankie.’

‘I guessed,’ Frankie blurted out. ‘Fergus looks so like you.’

At the mention of his name, Julia’s face lit up. ‘I gather he’s at playgroup,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Frankie, trying not to stare too nakedly at her. So here you are. Then her nerves got the better of her and she started babbling whatever came into her head. ‘He always has a great time there. The staff are brilliant and he’s got this fab best friend called Preena, who he loves playing Lego with, and—’ She broke off, struck by the strangeness of this conversation: the unlikely fact that she was having to tell this woman details about her own son. All the countless things Frankie knew about Fergus, yet Julia didn’t. All the cuddles and conversations and silly jokes that Frankie had enjoyed and Julia hadn’t.

‘So how often does he go there, then?’ Julia asked.

Was it Frankie’s imagination or did Julia sound a bit critical, as if she thought they were outsourcing Fergus’s childcare because they couldn’t be bothered to look after him themselves? ‘Three mornings a week,’ Craig replied tersely. Not that it’s any of your business, his expression added.

‘It’s good for his social skills,’ Frankie said, in a bright TV-presenter sort of voice that didn’t sound like her at all. ‘He’s made lots of friends. And with school coming up, we thought . . .’ Craig shot her a look and she trailed off, biting her lip. ‘Yeah,’ she mumbled. Craig was right, she told herself, they didn’t need to explain their decisions to Julia, not when she’d abandoned Fergus just when he needed her most. They didn’t owe her anything. So why did Frankie feel as if she was the one being judged here?