‘I don’t think Nell knew they were coming.’

‘Mmmm,’ commented Wendy.

‘Darling?’

‘Yes?’

‘If you see Dad on the easyJet website, can you let me know?’

‘I have to say I can’t see him just jumping on a plane and travelling all that way to surprise you, but you never know. Come to think of it, he hasn’t asked me to stock the fridge up, but he might be planning to stay at his club in London. I know, radical inspiration – why don’t you just ask him?’

After they rang off, Penny thought about it for a moment. Should she just ring Colin and ask him straight out if he was planning to come to Kyri? She decided against it. Colin wasn’t an imaginative man, and if he hadn’t already thought of it, it might give him the idea.

Moira disappeared while Penny went back to look for Nell and Naomi.

When she went back she found Nell alone. ‘Thank God Marigold has persuaded Willow to go and get some food. It’s just me and Naomi,’ Nell greeted her.

They both stared at the small plastic tent full of oxygenated air with the baby, naked and defenceless, lying on her back like a china doll in a toy shop.

‘She looks so tiny and vulnerable,’ Nell almost choked. ‘But this is the best treatment, apparently, and at least they aren’t filling her full of drugs.’

Penny hugged her friend. ‘It’s so great she has you with her. And they do seem very efficient here.’

Nell smiled, looking much calmer. ‘I know. Thank God we came.’

‘Would you mind if I went after Moira? I’m a bit concerned about her going alone.’

‘Of course,’ Nell smiled a small, sad smile. ‘Willow, and unfortunately Marigold, will be back soon. An excess of grandmothers, you might say.’

Penny grinned mischievously. ‘Could I hazard a small bet? Ten grand, say? That Marigold will not offer to stretch out on a two-foot-six camp bed with no en suite bathroom?’

Once Penny had gone, Nell sat as close as she dared to her granddaughter. ‘Darling Naomi,’ she whispered. ‘I love you so much, and we’re going to have such fun together when you’re better.’

She sat back, overwhelmed by a powerful feeling of love and fear. The baby was so still and the hospital so quiet that the whole thing had an air of a dream about it, and yet Nell knew it was all too nightmarishly real. She found herself longing for one of those busy, noisy children’s wards at home.

Usually when you were in a hospital you felt safe, that the decisions were in the hands of the experts. But Nell suddenly felt that here, today, the responsibility for her baby granddaughter was down to her.