I inwardly flinch, yet stoop that low are likely to be Deborah’s words, not Nina’s.

Deborah walks over to Felix and Emily and bends down. Obviously, I can’t hear what she’s saying, but after she kisses and hugs them, she walks toward the car park.

“We can’t let her drive in that state,” I say to Stuart. “You go after her. She is clearly directing all her anger at me. I’ll distract the children.”

Stuart follows her. He is gone a good fifteen minutes. When he returns, he is quiet.

He sits down opposite me, rather than beside me. Our lunch was served in his absence and he reaches over for his. He breaks his cheese-and-tomato baguette in half and bites into it. The children have left most of their fish, having mainly picked at the chips.

I don’t know what to say to make things better, to lift the atmosphere. Stuart is avoiding eye contact, and I can only begin to guess at some of the things Deborah’s told him. Right or wrong, she’s held me responsible for many a thing over the years. I feel sick, but I sit there picking at chips, too, slowly dipping them into ketchup, as if I, too, am reflecting. Which in a way, I am.

“Will Gran feel better soon?” Emily asks. “She said she had a stomachache.”

“I’m sure she will,” I say.

“Will she get sick like Mummy?”

“No, darling. Not sick like Mummy. It’s just something small like when you have a tummy ache. She’ll be fine, I promise.”

The conversation with Deborah has made me realize that I’ve put myself in the position of second best again, and now it’s going to be increasingly hard to assert myself.

I do have moments of guilt—of course I do, I’m human—but never regret. When Nina asked me to surreptitiously vet Stuart’s future partners, especially in relation to their suitability as mother figures, we wrote down a list of desired attributes. There were all the obvious things, of course, but by the time we’d finished, there was only one conclusion: the woman needed to be Nina’s twin. Subconscious seeds were naturally sown—there only ever was one obvious candidate.

Eighteen

We are outside a yacht club located at the end of a secluded road. Car ferries—comparative giants—slip past the marina heading for the Isle of Wight.

“The sea breeze will do you and the baby good,” Stuart insists as he lifts out two orange life jackets from the trunk of his car and hands me one.

It’s chilly, not the start of spring at all in my opinion, but Tamsin has offered to look after the children as long as we return the favor. She’s “reembracing” (her word, not mine) the dating scene following a self-imposed break after giving up on “men who don’t keep their promises” and there is someone she’d like to go out on a proper, grown-up date with.

I shiver as we walk along the jetty, past the signs warning us of deep water, submerged objects and sudden drops. To my right, stagnant water in between us and the grassy bank is thick with grease and litter. I turn away and try to ignore the smell of fuel, lest the sickness return.