I do laugh at this, and I feel another pang of loss and longing for Naomi, wishing more than anything that she and Jason could have conceived. Wishing that she could be sitting opposite me now bouncing her own baby on her knee before going home to her husband, instead of back to her tiny, cramped flat with a ready meal for one.

‘Sorry.’ She smiles, but it’s tinged with sadness as she traces one finger over the baby’s soft, milky cheek. ‘It probably was just a bird. We had a fireplace when I was a kid, and my dad was forever having to shove things up or down the chimney to get rid of the birds that fell down it. Your pot on the top might be damaged and that’s how it got in.’

‘Of course.’ Relief is swift and welcome. I think of the movement in the air when I was in the attic. ‘It must be a bird – I think there might be one trapped in the attic; I thought I heard it when I was up there getting the mirror.’ I did see something in the trees, but the more I talk about it, the more I am sure I am just trying to convince myself that it wasn’t a person.

‘Well, I’m not surprised,’ Naomi says. ‘It doesn’t help that there’s a full moon tonight. Flower Moon, believe it or not. How appropriate for us. That’s probably got your emotions all over the place as well.’

‘Flower Moon?’

‘That’s what the May full moon is called … you didn’t know?’

I had no idea that full moons had names. Blue moon, yes, I had heard of that but not any other. ‘No, I had no idea. It is very apt for us.’ Thinking of the florist, the scent of the flowers, the moist air that keeps the plants damp and makes my hair frizz, I feel a twist in my stomach. ‘How on earth do you know this stuff, Naomi?’

She shrugs. ‘I store shit information that is rarely, if ever, needed, but I can’t remember what I went to the shops for. Maybe I should go on a gameshow or something, try and make use of it.’

‘Remember that dreadful pub quiz we did, at that holiday park in Devon?’ I say, a bubble of laughter tickling the back of my throat. ‘I’ll never forget your face when that guy accused you of cheating.’

‘Oh my God, I’d forgotten that. It wasn’t my fault his quiz was absolutely shit. Mind you, the Robbie Williams tribute act that night was worse.’ Naomi laughs, and the baby jolts in her arms, his face crumpling.