‘You will always be with us to keep us safe,’ the twins heard her whisper. ‘Oh, David…David.’

But their father was not there to keep them safe. Did Nikki blame Fleur for what happened later? Was she angry with her? Yes, she was. If you had children you must look after them, no matter what happened to you or however sad you were. You must look after them and keep them safe forever, because you were their mother and if you didn’t, who would?

FOUR

‘What time is your mother’s flight from Auckland?’ Jack asked me at breakfast. He was standing at the sink, buttering toast.

‘Five o’clock, I think. I’m going to check in a minute. It’s OK, Jack. I can meet her on my own.’

‘No, Nik, we’ll both go. I’ll make sure I’ve finished by four; it will give us an hour to get there. Just be ready, we don’t want her standing around jetlagged waiting for us. Did you tell her to stay in the main airport until it’s time for the flight to Kerikeri? That other terminal is the pits.’

‘Yes. I e-mailed. It’ll be a miracle if she’s got to Auckland and not sailed off to Hong Kong by mistake…’ I joked weakly. ‘I don’t think she’s travelled so far on her own for a long time.’

Jack gave me one of his looks. ‘Well, she’s had the courage to stop off in Singapore on her own so she can’t be quite as dumb as you make out…’ He paused and I waited. ‘Your Mom is staying two nights, just two nights, Nik. Surely it can’t be too hard to be nice to her for a fleeting visit.’

He’s right, it shouldn’t be too hard, but it will be.

I was aware that the fault lay with me, that I was carrying a perceived injury long after it should have healed, that my feelings were immature, to say the least, in someone of my age. I wasn’t a teenager, for heaven’s sake. But there are some people who are so different from you that they get under your skin and make you itch as soon as they appear. My mother is one of those people.

‘Will you try,’ Jack kissed me, his mouth full of crumbs, ‘to be kind? Or it’s going to be embarrassing, especially as she’s meeting me for the first time.’

‘Of course,’ I said, ‘Pollyanna is my middle name.’

‘Who?’

I grinned at him. ‘Just an American goody-goody schoolgirl book.’

When Jack had gone I wandered round the house tidying, trying to see all we had done here with my mother’s eyes. Then I took towels up to the spare room, which had its own balcony, and I looked out over the bay and then stared down at the bed my mother would sleep in. It seemed strange to think of someone I hadn’t seen for over three years lying there tonight.

Disturbing; a sudden mix of my two, so different, lives. One I had wanted to leave behind me, so that I could be born anew, slough off that old teenage skin and turn into someone else, perhaps the person I was now. I had come so far, to another culture and another continent, and it seemed suddenly as if my mother was following me, as if to remind me of the shadows I left and the person I once was. I didn’t want to be reminded.