‘I don’t not love you, Rachel,’ she said, her voice breaking in a way that tore at my heart. ‘But I can’t talk to you when you’re being like this.’ She paused, staring down at me. ‘It’s as bad as… It’s as bad as it’s ever been. Maybe worse. I don’t know how to even find you this time.’

‘I’m right here.’ I grabbed for her sleeve, but she yanked her arm away as if my fingers had burnt her.

‘Don’t, okay?’ she said. ‘I’ll call you.’

‘Don’t bother,’ I snarled, humiliated and ashamed. ‘Just think about what I told you instead. Ask yourself – why’s Esther come back now? Because we both know it’s not to read you bedtime stories.’

I saw her stricken profile as she swept out of the door into the cold London night: I took a grim satisfaction in the fact my words had cut like a knife.

LILY

I directed Nick to park on a side street I knew behind Shepherd’s Bush Green – a row of squat little houses that can fetch a small fortune, despite the constant flow of takeaway chicken boxes flung into the gardens like they’re plastic gnomes – and we climbed out of the aggressively heated car into the January chill. As he reached the pavement next to me, I took his hand, even though we’d barely spoken during the drive. I’d been running through my scripts – all my scripts – and I wondered if he’d been doing the same.

‘We can do this, darling,’ I said, squeezing his fingers through the black leather of his gloves. They were so thick, with their plush sheepskin lining, that it was hard to know if my touch even registered. ‘We’re good parents, even if she doesn’t know it right now.’

‘Yeah, obviously,’ he said irritably. ‘We’ve given those kids everything.’

‘I’m not sure if it’s about that,’ I said.

‘Wow, Lily, you sound just like I reckon she does,’ he replied, pulling his hand away from mine to pull out his phone and pay for our parking. Ostensibly at least.

For a brief second, I suddenly envied Rachel her relentless freedom, her utter inability to commit. There was a certain self-destructive honesty to it, a bonfire of norms. Whereas me – I was welded to someone and entirely alone, all at once. Some people would say I’d chosen that, but I’m not sure that making choices is the same as choosing their eventual outcome – we humans are often too blind to work out even the simplest of sums.