Derry folded her arms and glanced away. ‘Men just seem born to roam, don’t they?’

‘I suppose each man is different,’ Aurelia answered, equally vague. She knew if she said she actually trusted Tom and had never once thought about how to keep him interested – this wasn’t the 1950s, after all – the conversation would shut down. ‘How do you keep Clive … interested?’ She broached the question gently, aware that this line of conversation was perhaps Derry’s way of reaching out for help of some kind. She was patently troubled by something.

‘I don’t think I do,’ Derry said, smiling and looking away. ‘I’m hoping a baby does the trick.’

And with that, Aurelia felt her heart at once go out to Derry and plummet for her. Using a baby to keep a man is the oldest listing in the book of Things That Don’t Actually Work.

But she didn’t say this. Instead, she poured them both a glass of non-alcoholic Pinot Noir and said, ‘I’ll drink to that.’

A knock at the kitchen door makes her jump. She turns and sees a figure through the glass who she recognizes faintly as one of the men working on the build. Erik, she recalls, the main contractor whose team were carrying out the physical graft of the build. She likes Erik. He’s a man in his fifties with those enormous builder’s hands, white shaggy hair, and pale, sad eyes. In fact, before he’d even mentioned the recent passing of Siv, his wife of thirty years, she’d sensed a great sadness about him. Breast cancer. She’d noticed how his chin trembled when he spoke of it, unable to contain it, to process it. A man still staggered by loss. All that grief and love on display, raw as an open wound.

She opens the door. ‘Hi Erik,’ she says brightly. He suddenly looks embarrassed and she remembers with horror that she’s just been breastfeeding Coco. Her shirt is only halfway buttoned, revealing a deep cleavage but mercifully not the full veined breast, and she hastily fixes herself as Erik darts his eyes away, first to the ground, then to the teenager standing next to him.

‘This is my son, Dag,’ he says.

Aurelia finishes fastening the rest of her shirt buttons with one hand and extends the other to Dag. He’s a pimpled, black-haired version of his father, maybe seventeen or eighteen years old. Tall, slender, the same pale eyes and bee-stung lips. He offers a smile and a surprisingly firm handshake. ‘How d-d-do you do?’ he stammers shyly.

‘Dag is finishing high school,’ Erik says, his accent less refined than his son, who has immersed himself for the last four years in English-speaking TV shows. ‘I spoke to Tom about this, maybe he didn’t mention it …’

He trails off. She cocks her head, trying to recall.