They both thrust their folders into my arms and skipped ahead.

I re-joined Frederick as he was returning his phone to his pocket. ‘Do you ever,’ he turned to look at me, ‘think about how often you need to lie to the person you’re married to?’

‘We don’t lie about the big stuff. That has to count for something.’ Frederick was not the person to be opening up to over any marriage insecurities I might be having.

‘But there’s a big part of your life, a big part of you, that this person you share a home with, share a family with, knows nothing about.’ He chewed his lip. ‘I often think if Camilla knew how high-pressured the job could be maybe I’d get more support from her.’

‘How so?’

‘Camilla is . . . Well, she finds a lot of things difficult. I try and help as much as I can. What’s important to me is that Arthur and Florence are well looked after. Camilla just needs a little reminding of that now and again.’

Frederick was only confirming my opinion of Camilla. I guessed she’d grown up privileged and didn’t need to work for anything. Didn’t need to concentrate on mundane day-to-day details as she’d always had someone else to do it for her. She could float around enjoying living in a nice house, going for nice lunches and do some light dabbling in the art world to feel she had something to say for herself at dinner parties. But surely no matter how privileged she was nothing made you stop being selfish more than having children? It wasn’t about you anymore but them. That was pretty much the first lesson of parenthood. It was strange that she hadn’t shifted her focus.

‘Adjusting to motherhood can be tough. I know it didn’t come easily to me at first. It’s still not easy. There’s always a worry you could be doing more. That you could be doing better.’

‘Come on, you’re killing it. Anyone can see that.’

I glowed a little.

And tried not to think of how Will never congratulated me on what I was doing right. That he just drew attention to what I was doing wrong. Kate was right when she’d been complaining about George Pig. We all needed to feel valued. To feel cared about.

And I wasn’t getting that from Will. He wasn’t a partner wanting to help me solve problems, he was just being the problem. Calming him down was just another task to tick off an ever-growing to-do list.

He was right when he said we were in trouble.

But until now I hadn’t realised how much.

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve