‘I wanted to apologize for earlier,’ Tara says, jiggling her baby on her knee. The baby, a boy, has more hair than Leo and his mouth makes a surprised ‘O’ shape as he bounces. Ralph, I think he’s called. Or maybe Robert. ‘If I made you feel uncomfortable.’

‘Oh, no.’ I shake my head. ‘No need to apologize.’

‘I should have left it, not nagged at you to tell us your birth story. Shhh, Rufus.’ The baby lets out a grizzly cry and Tara bounces him harder. ‘I always go too far, I’m sorry. Karl is always telling me when enough is enough. That’s my husband.’

‘It’s OK, Tara, I’m fine. It’s just not that easy to talk about, you understand. It was a pretty scary experience.’

She nods, pursing her lips and for one brief, dizzying moment I think she’s going to press me on it again, that she’s going to try and cajole me into telling her the whole horrifying tale. Instead, she says, ‘How are you feeling now, though? I mean, an easy birth can take it out of you, right? It must be even harder when things don’t go according to plan.’

‘Oh, I’m fine.’Just not sleeping, dreaming of something terrible happening when I do manage to sleep, and worried I’m sharing my house with something that shouldn’t be here. ‘Just a bit tired, you know.’

‘Oh, I know,’ Tara says emphatically. ‘I had postnatal depression after I had James. It was the most horrendous time of my life. I honestly wouldn’t have been able to cope if my mum and Karl hadn’t been around. You haven’t …’ She breaks off for a moment, shifting in her seat. ‘You haven’t been feeling down or anything, have you?’

‘Um, no. Nothing like that at all.’ The conversation has taken a serious turn and I get up, moving to the sink to rinse out my cup, even though I am only halfway through my tea.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable. No one ever asked me that, that’s all. This time they’ve been all over me, asking if I’m OK, how I’m feeling, but the first time, nothing.’ Tara offers up a small smile. She’s not as confident as she makes out, I think. A lot of it is bluster and noise.

‘I’m sorry. That must have been awful for you.’ I am not like that. I am tired, yes, but I am not depressed.

‘Anyway. Let’s not talk about that. As long as you feel all right, that’s the most important thing. And it’s nice that you have your mum to support you at the moment.’ Tara picks up her cup, Rufus still balanced on her knee and I have that frightening image again of the cup dropping, the hot tea spilling all over the baby, scalding him.