She didn’t look at me as she yanked a cardigan down and rolled it into a messy ball before stuffing it into the side of the case.

‘She was alright,’ she said. ‘Mum needs me. I’m going over.’

I was momentarily speechless.

‘They need peace and quiet, surely?’ I said, trying to keep my voice level. ‘You can’t take a small baby there.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ she said crisply.

Anger burned, hot and quick then. Here we were again. Anya running ‘home’.

‘It won’t be fine!’ I said, trying not to shout, because Livi was stirring at the air of stress in the room and I didn’t want to set her off. ‘It’ll be noisy and unrelaxing and everything Julia doesn’t need right now!’

She turned to me, eyes glittering with unshed tears and wired energy.

‘What do you know about it?’ she snapped. ‘I know my mum better than you ever will.’

I sucked in my breath then. I’d never seen her like this before. She had an almost feral air about her, like she would attack if pushed into a corner. It was as though all the usual guy ropes of her reason that tethered her to the ground had been severed.

‘I’m only going for a few days, while she has the first round of treatment,’ she said, her voice a little more reasonable now.

I stared at her as she went to the chest of drawers and then began throwing balls of paired socks into the open case.

I laid our daughter, who was watching us with her knowing baby eyes through all this, on the small sofa under our window. Anya glanced up at me and turned back to what she was doing. I pushed the lid on the case closed, making Anya turn again with a surprised expression.

‘What are you doing?’ she said.

‘You’re not going to stay there,’ I said. Her eyebrows shot up and she took a step back, before giving a sharp little laugh.

‘Look at you, all macho,’ she said. ‘And why is that, oh Lord and Master?’

‘Because it would be extremely selfish to do that,’ I said, keeping my voice even. She glared back at me.

‘How’s that then?’ she said.

‘You can’t take a small baby into a house where someone needs to rest.’

Anya regarded me then shrugged.

‘I’ll leave Livi here then,’ she said.

‘What the fuck, Anya? I’m at work!’

‘Take a few days off,’ she said flatly. ‘Not like you haven’t before.’

Maybe the anger was still a leftover from what had happened in the autumn but the next thing I knew was that I was shoving the whole case onto the floor, where it landed upside down, spilling clothes into a slithery pile on the carpet.

‘No,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘This isn’t happening.’