‘Don’t worry, Mum, I’ve got loads of stuff and can rustle up something,’ Lily had insisted, so plaintively that it had taken all of Esther’s willpower not to start quizzing her on the spot. ‘If you could be here by seven, that would be great, so long as that’s not going to make you too late for getting back…’ Esther had assured her seven was fine, and rushed out as soon as her morning work stint was done to buy some flowers and a brick-sized bar of chocolate. Both were on the car seat beside her, the flowers bunched inside dampened kitchen paper and silver foil to stay moist, and lying on top of her blue winter coat, thrown in as a precaution against the increasing autumn cold.

Working the pedals as she drove, Esther was aware of her new, wide-legged, black trousers – a reckless catalogue purchase that had fitted perfectly for once, as well as arriving in the promised twenty-four hours – sliding smoothly over her legs. She had picked out a smart, white, collared shirt to go with them, and her favourite, fuchsia-coloured jacket, and then stood for a few moments looking at herself in the mirror. It had felt good to dress well for Lily, and there was some natural colour in her cheeks. She looked poised and strong. She felt poised and strong. Buoyant, even. Bullish. Another, sustaining, photo-postcard of some South American waterfalls had arrived, along with the treat of a love you mum, and though Lily was clearly in some sort of dip, Esther was almost relishing her own determination to yank her daughter out of it, no matter what it took. As she had performed a final mirror-twirl, the somewhat glib words with which she had inadvertently impressed Marcus over the weekend had floated back to mind. Yes, parenthood certainly did keep evolving, terrifyingly; but for the first time in a very long while, she was feeling more than up for it.

What Esther was also aware of, however, was that all this new can-do certainty, while connected to her children, had rather more to do with the unexpected events of Saturday night. Who knew that several hours of torrid yet tender sex with a handsome, kind, younger (by ten years almost to the day, they had gleefully worked out) semi-stranger could produce such miracles of empowerment? That the encounter was just a one-off, as both she and Marcus had, mutually and not at all sheepishly, agreed afterwards, made it all the better. It meant there was no follow-up to worry about, no potential embarrassment or awkwardness; nothing, indeed, beyond the friendly hug and a cheery wave on the doorstep with which they had said their farewells at six o’clock the following morning, Marcus hurdling over the fence to pack up for his shoot in Amsterdam. Esther had closed the door and trotted back upstairs in search of more sleep, which hadn’t arrived.