It took her a long time for her to be able to look after Archie. ‘I can’t,’ she had said when we had first discussed the possibility of me going back to work. I had taken her hands in mine.

‘I trust you.’

She had shaken her head. ‘You shouldn’t.’

‘Well, I do. George and I both do and… Carly, I couldn’t trust anyone else.’ There was no way I could leave Archie with a stranger.

‘What if…’ She had squeezed her eyes tightly closed.

‘We can’t live our lives by what-ifs.’

She had looked at me then with such a disbelieving expression on her face.

‘Okay,’ I had conceded. ‘I see the irony in that but I am trying. Try with me. You adore Archie.’ From the second she had first held him at the hospital and he had wrapped his tiny fingers around her thumb she was lost to emotions she just couldn’t fight.

‘It’s because I love him I can’t do it.’

‘It’s because you love him that you can.’

Now, Carly picks Archie up when I’m working at the insurance firm in town, processing policies for the fears that keep people awake at night – theft, death, illness, but I know these things aren’t the worst that can happen. Not by a long way.

‘Archie’s fine,’ I say over the sound of the kettle boiling. ‘I was mortified earlier though because all the other kids were already sitting in a circle when we got there. Sorry we’re late, he shouted. Mummy couldn’t get in the bloody bathroom because Daddy was doing a big poo. That child.’ I shake my head as though I’m despairing but we all know I’m not. Archie is the light of my life. ‘You must come and see him, Marie.’ I try not to sound critical that we see her so infrequently.

‘Yes. Sorry, I’ve been busy.’

‘Doing what?’ Carly asks. Marie was sacked from her last role for turning up drunk five minutes before she was supposed to go on stage. That was six months ago and she hasn’t worked since. She said it was the kick she needed to give up drinking and focus on the future.

‘This and that,’ she says vaguely. Her mouth gapes a yawn. There are dark shadows under her eyes. She’s not sleeping well either.

‘Something keeping you up at night. Or someone?’ Carly asks.

Marie doesn’t answer but her neck flushes red. She’s keeping something from us.

‘Marie, are you seeing someone?’

She doesn’t deny it, instead she busies herself splashing milk into mugs and fishing out teabags with a spoon. I don’t repeat my question. If Marie doesn’t want to tell us something, she won’t. She leads us through to the lounge, sweeping piles of magazines from the sofa onto the threadbare carpet. A stick of incense on a stand on the windowsill billows smoke. The scent is cloying. Momentarily it crosses my mind that she might be masking the smell of booze. I steal a glance around the room, searching for empty bottles stuffed into corners, lipstick-stained tumblers, but there’s nothing. My eyes meet Carly’s and she shrugs. I know she’s thinking the same as me. I set the chipped plate stacked with Tesco basic digestives on the table.