‘Bella was a breeze. But I had terrible morning sickness with Amy. And Kieran was fine apart from the last few months, like I said.’

I want Kate to elaborate on her pregnancy with Bella, but my brain is becoming slow and fuzzy. I don’t know how to get her to talk about it without her growing suspicious.

‘How about your pregnancies?’ she asks.

‘Mine were fine,’ I reply, unwilling to elaborate. Because then I would have to exclude Holly’s. ‘No major dramas.’

‘That’s good.’

There’s a bit of a lull in the conversation. Shaun and Matt have fallen quiet too.

‘Thank you again for inviting us,’ Kate says. ‘You’ll definitely have to come over to ours once we’ve unpacked a few more boxes. We’ve still only got five of everything – five dinner plates, five mugs, five knives, five forks. It’s driving me nuts. The rest of the kitchen stuff ended up in the loft by mistake and Shaun promised he’d get it down for me.’ Kate stares pointedly at her husband and smiles. ‘Didn’t you, Shaun?’

He raises his hands. ‘Okay, okay, hint taken. I promise the kitchen boxes will come down tomorrow.’

‘We’ve got witnesses.’ She grins. ‘I’d get the boxes myself, but I don’t do heights.’

I catch Shaun’s eye. ‘Kate’s been telling me about your children. I met Bella the other day. She’s got such distinctive colouring – those green eyes are amazing.’

‘Yeah, lots of people notice those eyes.’

‘Do green eyes run in your family then? Because I noticed the rest of you have blue eyes.’ I know my question is verging on inappropriate, so I qualify it with, ‘I’m really interested in genetics and family traits.’ I catch Matt raising his eyebrows for a second in the corner of my eye, as if to say, News to me.

‘My mum’s got dark hair,’ Shaun says. ‘But we think her eyes are some recessive gene that’s popped up.’

‘Interesting.’ I pretend to think for a moment. ‘So did you ever do any digging into your family history to find out?’

‘No.’ Shaun shakes his head and looks a bit bemused.

‘I’d love to see some baby photos of Bella. I’ll bet she was a cutie.’ I turn to Kate. ‘Do you have any?’

‘What? Baby photos of Bella?’ Kate frowns. ‘Uh, no. Not on me. They’re either in albums or on my old phone.’