‘That was quick,’ she said accusingly.

He coughed. ‘Maternity cover,’ he said, embarrassed at the irony.

‘When?’

He spoke but it was so quiet, she didn’t catch it at first.

‘Pardon?’

‘Next month. I’m sorry, Katie . . . but your mother’s sister – your aunt. She’s ill. Your mother wants to be near her. It might not be for long. Just till she’s on the mend.’

It was always the lies that were designed to spare you that hurt the most.

‘You’re leaving me.’

‘Katie, you’ve already moved out.’

‘I was kicked out.’

‘Your mother has her faults, but she never did that.’

‘Does not talking to me for seven months, literally not one word, not mean I was no longer there – in her eyes?’

As usual, his face clouded over, torn between the two women in his life. Kate didn’t have the energy to feel sorry for him. Not anymore. The birth had taken it out of her, but it was something else too. A realization of who her father really was, of his profound weakness. She glanced at him in his brown corduroy jacket. He looked every inch the dusty maths lecturer, a man who withdrew from real life and hid behind his subject. Clinging to the only things he still understood, that never changed. Algebra. Statistics. Geometry.

He was looking at the brand-new changing bag on the chair next to her bed. ‘It arrived then?’

‘Yeah.’ He’d posted it to her the week before, and she knew it was a secret parcel that her mother had known nothing about. Kate had come home from her job at the garden centre to find her new neighbour, Iris, had taken it from the postman to save her the mile-long walk uphill to the delivery office – something she would have found hard with the huge bump she was carrying. Inside were disposable nappies, Babygros, a blue puppy toy, £500 rolled up and tied with an elastic band, and a four-pack of Smarties, her favourite chocolate when she was little that her dad had always bought her as a special treat. It was this that had made her choke up, as it made her feel as if she were the child, not her imminent baby. And in many ways, she still was. The card had simply said, ‘Love, Dad x.’

‘I didn’t know much about what to put in,’ he said. ‘The lady in the shop had more of a clue.’

He seemed to be looking for praise that he’d done the right thing.

‘It’s perfect. Got loads of stuff to keep me going.’

‘Here’s a bit more,’ he said, tucking an envelope into the bag.

She knew it was money. And quite a bit of it, judging by the glimpse she’d got of the thickness of the envelope. She made a mental resolve to save it, put it aside with the other sum he’d given her. Suddenly she knew it was just from him, her mother didn’t know about it.