Molly wanted to argue that her job was equally as exhausting, but he’d looked unusually pale so she’d said nothing. She looked around the living room. She was aware that many women juggled child-rearing, running a house and working full-time without outside help; had she not had a housekeeper and cleaner over the years, no doubt she’d have learned to cope too. But she had been able to afford help and wasn’t interested in learning to juggle things at this stage.

She set an account up with a local supermarket and ordered everything they needed from there; it meant some compromise, but it was worth it. For convenience, she set it up as a repeat order; every Saturday morning the same items would be delivered.

Molly had never entertained the idea of getting rid of Terry, their cleaning lady. To Molly’s relief she was willing to come for an extra couple of hours a week to do the laundry and ironing. ‘But you will make sure the house is cleaned properly, won’t you?’ she said to her, watching as Terry nodded with more vigour than she’d ever seen her use while she cleaned.

‘Of course, Mrs Chatwell.’

‘Fine,’ Molly said, relieved, ‘we’ll give it a trial.’

Unfortunately, it seemed that Terry’s idea of taking on extra work was to leave everything half-done. Now, only two weeks after Rebecca’s departure, the house was looking uncared for, some of Molly’s white Armani shirts had a pink tinge, and their clothes never looked better than half-ironed.

Molly tucked the to-do list in her pocket and looked around. The L-shaped living room was the ideal space for entertaining and one of the reasons they’d bought the house. A long, narrow, marble-topped unit separated the glossy high-end kitchen in the short arm from the rest. To the front of the long arm, a circular table sat in the deep bay window where floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the garden and allowed light to flood the room. French windows opened from here onto a wide veranda. The other end was furnished for comfort; two huge sofas facing each other across a wide, low table. On the wall, a large ornate picture frame disguised the TV. It was a perfect space for entertaining but now, thanks to Terry’s half-hearted efforts, it looked decidedly unkempt.

Pulling open a drawer, Molly tore a page from a notebook and scrawled a message: make sure you do a good job today, we’re having friends around. She propped it against the kettle where Terry, who drank copious amounts of coffee in the few hours she was there, was sure to see it.