It occurred to Nell that Chris was somewhere noisy, some-where busy, she could hear the rumble of voices, the faint pulse of music.

One voice closer than all the others, muted, barely audible.

‘Is Sam there? Is she with you now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where are you?’

‘We’re in Roberto’s.’ The Italian cafe opposite the gallery, very cool, very hip, very popular.

‘Right. Since when do we do breakfast meetings?’

‘Oh, come on, Nell.’

There was a pause, and Maude stopped scooping milky cereal into her mouth.

‘Anyway,’ Chris went on, ‘we’re hoping to meet with Simeon Lee tomorrow, show him the plans, answer all his objections, see if I can’t talk him round before he takes it to the council.’

And he had always been good at that, at what Nell’s dad used to call ‘turning on the charm’.

‘What goes around, comes around,’ Jess, Maude’s mother, had said once, back in the early days, when they were all still trying to manage the separation, the new arrangements with Maude, back when she could barely stand to be in the same room as her ex-husband and his new girlfriend. ‘He did it to me, and one day he’ll do it to you.’

Nell had ignored her, of course. It had been different with her and Chris; it hadn’t been infidelity, it had been love.

‘The signal in here is rubbish,’ said Nell, standing and heading for the kitchen door. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

It was chilly out in the shade of the house; the day had yet to warm up and goosebumps rose on her skin. ‘Are you even going to try to get back up here?’

‘Nell—’

‘Are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Soon?’ She edged away from the house, glancing down towards Spinnaker Cottage.

‘Yes. Like I said, we’ve got this meeting tomorrow then . . .’

But it seemed to her he had hesitated. ‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ she said, ‘because I think your daughter would quite like to see you.’

‘You just said she was fine.’

‘She’s hobbling around the house, barely speaking to me. And I’m still – still . . .’ The ache in her back, the cut on her lip, the pain in her side every time she moved; she wanted to cry. ‘I don’t feel very – I got my period.’ She lowered her voice – wishing she could be sure Sam wasn’t listening to Chris’s half of the conversation. ‘I’m not pregnant.’

‘Oh.’ She could feel him weighing his response. ‘Are you – was it a – miscalculation?’

‘No. I had my dates right. It didn’t – I was pregnant.’ She was sure of that, at least. ‘But I’m not pregnant anymore.’

There was a long pause. ‘You’re sure? I mean – you were sure last time too. It wasn’t—’ The background noise surged, people talking, plates, cutlery clattering.

‘Of course I’m sure.’