I clearly didn’t have a way with other people’s kids. I should at least fare better with my own. I picked up the discarded doll on the floor.

‘Come on, Gigi, this one is much better.’ I handed it to her. ‘Remember the fun race to the door? Stop crying. Please, Gigi. For Mama? Frederick is getting you an amazing treat. And I’ll carry you?’ She continued to howl. ‘And you can have my phone? I promise?’

‘NO.’ She flung the doll across the room. It slid against the polished floor and hit the library door. I looked into my tote bag – the Peppa Pig mobile light was still a steady green.

The security wand at the library door would be in range. Mission accomplished.

Frederick came racing round the corner holding a bag.

‘Gigi! We do not throw, remember?’ I gave the thumbs up to Frederick.

‘Thank God,’ he muttered as he pulled Florence to her feet.

I stood up and turned round. The guard walked towards me holding the doll. ‘Here you go.’

‘Thank you. Sorry about that.’

He laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got two of my own. No pleasing them sometimes.’

Gigi looked up at me as I handed her back the doll. She looked down at it for a moment and then took it and tucked it under her arm.

‘I stop cry. Where yummy treat?’

‘Frederick?’

He handed over the bag. Inside it was a lollipop the size of my hand. I gave him a look.

‘It was all they had.’

I pulled it out, took off the wrapping and handed it to her. She started licking it. ‘Now Mama carry. And Mama phone. YOU PROMISHED.’

I did.

I’d promised. I sighed and handed the phone over.

I looked over at the line of nursery mothers watching us, their well-behaved children standing quietly in front of them.

‘Mama, can I have one?’ a boy in a tartan shirt pointed at the lollipop clasped in Gigi’s hand.

‘No, Sebastian, you know we never have treats before dinner,’ his mother replied in a loud voice.

Rochelle made a noise that sounded like she had something stuck in her teeth. Either that or she was tut-tutting me. She couldn’t really be. Could she?

Gigi’s tantrum had nearly derailed a mission and now I was being judged for being a lazy, spoiling parent who had no control over her child. I tried to hold my head up high as I walked past them carrying my two-year-old as she licked the enormous lollipop and stared at the Peppa Pig YouTube video playing on my phone.

They might be thinking ‘crap mother’ but I’d been acting for the good of our country.

*