‘You don’t normally come on your own,’ she said, manoeuvring the car into her little driveway. She lived in a two-storey Victorian red brick, attractively draped in ivy. My father had died when I was fifteen, and Mum had never remarried, despite many offers, but she did date from time to time. Sensible, cheerful relationships, mostly based on hiking holidays in Wales or wine-tasting at the parish hall. Usually with widowers or divorcees, who inevitably had children too. I wondered why she had the knack of a non-dramatic love life, while I seemed utterly incapable.

‘He’s working,’ I said, lumbering out of the car.

‘But you usually come on weekends.’

‘I know. I just thought it would be quieter, on the train. And I wanted to see you before you go.’ Mum was spending Christmas on a cruise with Nigel, her latest squeeze, and I was horrified to find myself jealous, at the idea of being thousands of miles from Nick, and Nora, and the mess I’d made of my life. Upstairs, the spare room was stacked with guidebooks, travel supplies, sun cream, ready to be packed.

‘That’s nice, dear.’ But her keen eyes roamed over me, and I knew that the fine attention to detail that made her such a good lawyer might show her the truth. I wanted her to see it. I didn’t know how to bring it up, so I needed her to ask.

As usual, she skilfully filled the silence between us with bustle. She made me unpack, though I’d only brought enough for one night, and had me peeling a mound of vegetables for stew, and then go through the programme for a local literary festival, ringing anything that sounded interesting. Mum only read highbrow authors, and had chastised me as a teen for ‘wasting my mind on that trash’ when she saw me with Agatha Christie or Jilly Cooper.

She fussed around me, pushing me to eat cake and cheese, so she could show how abstemious she was herself; Mum’s usual MO, which had seen me weigh twelve stone at the age of fifteen. Finally, dinner eaten, washed up, leftovers carefully decanted into labelled Tupperware, we sat down by her small, old-fashioned TV. She put on her reading glasses and peered at the listings in the Radio Times. ‘Now, what would you like? There’s a Scandi drama I’ve been meaning to have a look at, or a rerun of Bergerac.’ Mum did not do on-demand telly. I suspected she thought it was too self-indulgent; you’d take what the schedulers gave you and like it.

‘Mum – I thought maybe we could talk.’

‘Talk?’ Her brow creased. She was so elegant still, her hair a shade edging between grey and blonde, her glasses stylish, her figure trim and slim. ‘Is everything alright, dear?’