‘I’m jealous because you’re so good with the kids. Léa adores you. Michel keeps telling me how you’ve got your priorities right by having a career break and some time abroad. He wants us to do that, keeps telling me we should travel with the kids, while they’re young. But I can’t think of anything worse. I think it would drive me crazy to be with them 24/7. Yes, it’s a busy time at work but it’s not just that. I need it, Jess. I need to work. I need to be out of the house during the day, because being a mother is not enough. I had children because Michel wanted them, because my friends were having them, because it’s what you do. But motherhood bores me, I think. And believe me, I’ve tried. After Luca was born it didn’t make sense for me to continue to work and pay a huge sum for both kids to go to la garderie, so after maternity leave – which is only fourteen weeks here – I left my job to stay home with them.’ She sighs, gives a small shake of her head. ‘I really tried. But I was so bored and frustrated. It made me so miserable to spend my day at playgroups and the park, while my former co-workers were working on such exciting events. I couldn’t do it, so after a year, when a similar position at my old company came up, I went back.’

She looks at me.

‘Don’t misunderstand me, Jess, I love my kids. I love them so much. But I can’t do what you do. So yes, I’ve been jealous.’

I’m so shocked I don’t know what to say. All this time I felt so inferior, so small, compared to her. But she was envious of me? My brain flits back to an argument I once heard between Maggie and Mum when I was a teenager: You don’t know how lucky you are to have her. And Mum, replying, I do, I do, but that doesn’t make it easy.

Do we always want what we don’t have?

‘Michel…’ I pause, not sure if I should say it. ‘Michel said you work so hard because you had a tough upbringing,’ I say. ‘Because your mother struggled.’

Julia shakes her head and lets out a laugh laced with cynicism. ‘Did he? Well, Michel likes his theories. But it’s simpler than that, Jess. I want to work because I enjoy it, because I want a fulfilling career, just as Michel does. Am I not allowed to want that because I’m the mother?’

I open my mouth to say something, but she cuts me off.