‘This is a nice surprise,’ Alison said as Robyn sat down opposite her at the beer-garden table. It was Friday, Robyn’s day off, and she’d originally planned to spend the afternoon getting the house in order for the weekend: catching up on the laundry, with a quick whip around the supermarket if she had time. As it turned out, what she really wanted was to see a friendly face. Don’t suppose you’re free for lunch today? The White Horse? she had texted her mum hopefully.

It must have been serendipity because, not ten minutes earlier, Alison had just had a cancellation and so here they were now, at a pub equidistant from them both. Alison was being her usual comforting self, handing over a menu and saying knowledgeably that the home-made pasties were very good here, before she lifted up her sunglasses to peer more closely at her daughter. ‘Is everything all right, love?’

Robyn smiled wanly. What was it about mums that meant they had a built-in worry detector? ‘Not really,’ she replied with a sigh, turning the laminated menu over in her hands. ‘John’s lost his job.’

‘Oh no.’ Alison’s jaw dropped, mirroring the shock Robyn had experienced on hearing the news. ‘He hasn’t!’

‘He has. Redundancies across the department, apparently,’ Robyn said, grimacing. John had worked at the university for eighteen years; a job for life, or so he’d thought. He was the main breadwinner of the family, the mortgage payer, the holiday provider, the man with the golden credit card. More than that: he prided himself on his ability to provide for them, and was old-fashioned in the sense that he thought this was what a husband should do. But then two days ago, when Beth Broadwood had approached Robyn with her attempted solidarity – I was sorry to hear the news – it turned out that John’s job, and all that it meant for the family, had fractured and collapsed to the ground while she had been looking the other way.

‘I was going to tell you,’ John said glumly, when she’d built up to asking him if it was true. ‘I was just . . . trying to find the right moment.’

He looked ashamed, poor man; he looked broken by his confession. He’d hardly been able to look Robyn in the eye as he revealed the facts in a weary, defeated voice. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she cried passionately in response. ‘What a nightmare.’ She took his hand and squeezed it, wishing she could make things better for him. John’s job defined him; it was all he’d ever done. He was the sort of person who became restless during the long vacations; he much preferred being at work and getting on with the job. ‘Are they scrapping the course, or what? Is everyone going?’