And yet each time she set out to write the perfect letter, she found it impossible to find the right tone, worrying about the way she was presenting herself. She wanted to give a good first impression – second impression, rather – but it wasn’t easy. Her first attempt was too stiff and defensive. The next try tipped the balance the other way and was apologetic and timid. The third was over-friendly, sharing far too much detail about her life. The fourth sounded desperate – pleading almost. The fifth was a cringeworthy mixture of all its predecessors. In the end, she chucked the pen and paper to one side in defeat. The perfect letter didn’t exist, simple as that.

It wasn’t only her poor writing skills that were stressing her out. Ever since the unpleasant and unplanned-for visit of Julia the previous Thursday, a subdued sort of atmosphere had settled upon the flat, as if they were all biding their time, waiting for the next dramatic episode to unfold. Frankie felt helpless in the face of the other woman – and in the eyes of the law, too. Previously she’d nursed a private hope that in time she might be able to adopt Fergus as her own child, or at least apply for parental responsibility, but she and Craig had only been together three years; she hadn’t wanted to jump the gun by broaching the subject too soon. Now she wished she’d been a bit more proactive because, as things stood, Julia held a lot more power than she did in the situation.

‘Don’t worry,’ Craig assured her. ‘All that guff she was spouting about a mother’s rights being sacred . . . it’s not really like that any more. Whatever they told her at the Citizens Advice place – if she even went in there – I bet she didn’t give them the full story. Because nobody in their right mind would think her rights to Fergus outweighed mine.’

‘We should probably give her a chance, though,’ Frankie ventured reluctantly in reply. Not because she particularly liked Julia or anything, but because this seemed to her the only decent course of action. Julia had given birth to Fergus after all; he had grown inside her body. Not to mention the fact that Julia’s abandonment of motherhood had been Frankie’s joyful gain. She owed her one, really.

‘It won’t be good for Fergus,’ Craig had said flatly. ‘Julia’s chaotic, all over the place. She doesn’t even know him.’

‘But she did say she felt better,’ Frankie had reminded him, to which he merely snorted.

‘She’s all talk,’ he’d muttered. ‘This will be a whim, you wait. I know her, remember.’