‘Hello?’

‘Al, it’s me.’ His voice crackles down the line and I shift slightly, looking at the screen. Only one bar of reception. ‘You sound out of breath. What are you up to?’

I realize I am panting slightly from the effort of digging and take a second to try and regulate my breathing. ‘My phone was downstairs; I was putting the baby down for a nap.’ I cross my fingers against the lie.

‘I just wanted to let you know, I made a doctor’s appointment for you. He can see you tomorrow morning.’

‘Rav …’ Irritation prickles and I have to temper my tone. ‘I can make my own doctor’s appointment. I’m not a child.’

‘No, I know,’ he says. ‘I just thought that maybe you—’

‘That I wouldn’t do it? That I’d go back on my word?’ My voice rises sharply and something behind me splashes into the murky water of the pond. Turning, I see more ripples, bigger this time and I turn my back, not wanting to see what it was. ‘Jesus, Rav, I said I would do it.’

‘I was going to say,’ he says, his voice tinged with impatience, ‘that I thought you might forget, that’s all. I thought I was doing you a favour. Had you already booked it?’

‘No,’ I say, shoving the small trowel into the dirt, ‘I hadn’t.’

‘Well then,’ Rav says, ‘good job I did, eh? One more thing you don’t have to think about today. Listen, how about we go out for dinner tonight?’

‘What about the children? The baby?’ Panic flutters in my chest at the thought of them being in the house, at night, in the dark, without me there to protect them. Without me there to watch over them all as they sleep, keeping an eye on the woods.

‘I’ll sort it, leave it all to me. I think we need to spend the evening together, on our own. I think perhaps I’ve not been as understanding as I should have been.’

‘No, Rav—’