‘Your daddy’s not here,’ I yell. ‘Do you hear me? He’s not here and he’s not going to be. Now stop being such a naughty boy.’

He falls silent then looks at me for a moment. I unhook the belt on his car seat but as I lift him out of the car he starts wriggling and squirming in my arms. His hands, balled into fists, hammer at my chest and it’s all I can do to keep him steady.

‘Hey, are you okay?’

I turn to see a man standing next to the inflatable snowman. He’s in his early thirties by the looks of it, broad-shouldered – ‘stocky’ as my mum would have said – with dark eyes and close-shaved chestnut hair. He’s got one arm folded across his chest and in his hand is an unlit cigarette, presumably swiped from the snowman’s mouth. He frowns as he watches me.

‘I’m fine,’ I say, hoisting Joe on to my hip and trying not to make eye contact with the man as I step on to the pavement.

‘You sure about that?’ he continues, pausing to light the cigarette.

I nod my head briskly.

‘Haven’t seen you before,’ he says, narrowing his eyes. ‘You visiting?’

‘Something like that,’ I say. ‘Sorry, I’m in a bit of a rush.’

I turn and make my way to the shop, Joe hanging angrily off my hip.

‘Well, nice to meet you,’ calls the man from behind us. ‘Whatever your name is.’

I shudder. Why do men do that? Yell after you. Invade your space. Demand you tell them your business. What gives them the right?

As we reach the shop I put Joe down then arrange my hair so that it falls across my eyes. I need to make myself as respectable as possible. I push the door open and my heart lifts as I see a lottery machine, a cashpoint, a display of gluten-free bread. Things I’ve taken for granted after years of living in a big city. Comforting ordinariness. It’s strange but even though I was only in that house for a few moments it felt like I’d slipped through some weird time portal, as though real life had ceased to exist.

There’s a woman sitting behind the counter reading a newspaper. She’s in her fifties and has a mop of curly greying hair. She looks up as we enter, gives me a cursory glance over her cherry-red spectacles, then returns to her reading. Good. The less attention I draw to myself the better.

I take a wire basket from the stack by the door and make my way over to the fridges. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be buying. Food. That’s it. I pick up a pack of fresh chicken breasts and I’m about to put them in the basket when I remember there is no oven in the house. I put them back then move on to the chilled ready meals. There is a selection of pre-packed sausage rolls. I choose a handful of them and put them in the basket. I hear Mark’s voice in my head: ‘You’re not giving our son that processed rubbish, Lisa.’ But Mark’s not here and I have brought our son to a house in the middle of nowhere with no running water and no bloody oven. A sausage roll is the least of our worries.