I forget for a bit, and get on with the supper, then pick my phone up a few minutes later. Anna Foreman, one of the new school mums and a recent addition to the group, is on the move too. I don’t know her well, but Cassie added her, to make her feel welcome. Her avatar is a cup of tea.

I keep half an eye on their stats, sipping my wine, occasionally glancing at the garden. We’re halfway through April and my flower beds are already full of colour, grape hyacinths mingling with yellow-green euphorbia. The foxgloves are showing hints of new growth in the depths of their thick leaves. I love foxgloves. There’s a flurry of activity around Nick’s newly refilled bird feeder. Two goldfinches and a couple of tits fly in and out, while beneath them a pair of ring-necked doves peck the grass for fallen seed. Having been brought up in a gardenless flat, I don’t have a clue about birds, apart from the obvious. Nick tells me who’s who.

I glance at the app. Both Nick and Anna are still walking, although Nick must be nearly at the shops, even if he did loop through the Common. When his numbers stop rising, I imagine him at the till, handing over the milk, tapping his card. Anna isn’t moving any more either. A minute passes, and another. The oven beeps and I open it, take out the mince and give it a stir. It’s stuffed with this week’s leftover veg, everything tinged orange by the sweet potato. Five minutes later, when I check again, their numbers are still in stasis. I find that I’m holding my breath. Then Anna moves and a second or so later Nick moves too.

I put the phone down slowly. Probably a coincidence. I look out of the window, follow the arc of a goldfinch as it flies between the holly tree and the feeder. And I feel odd, weighted down and queasy, with a strange sense of urgency and a low-level hum in my brain.

TAISIE

July 2000

TAISIE BRUSHED HER HAIR WHILE ROSA CHECKED HERSELF out in the long mirror attached to the inside of her wardrobe door. Taisie had the biggest bedroom, after her mum and dad’s, because she was the oldest, but she still regretted not picking Alex’s when she had the chance, because it was under the roof and not on the same floor as anyone else’s. Unfortunately, when they moved here Taisie was only eight and hadn’t known any better and Alex was four, so their mother chose for him. When she was thirteen, she’d tried to persuade Alex to swap, even bribing him, but the little bastard wouldn’t budge. She loved him, really. Well, kind of. She wasn’t a fan of small boys.