‘I know,’ he said, not even trying to defend himself. ‘I’ve been immature and selfish. I was just finding it all so hard and going out and letting off some steam was my way of coping with it. But I’ve not been fair to you and I know that. It’s going to stop, Angie, I promise.’

Throughout his episodes, as she started calling them, she had never thought about leaving him, not seriously anyway. If he was cheating on her then she was sure she would have felt differently but she trusted that he wasn’t. This going out with the lads and having a few too many was simply his release, his way of getting away from it all.

They moved out of the flat and bought the house in Greenwich. Finally, they had some more space and it felt like freedom. Indie decided that Jack was her hero, not her enemy. True to his word, Jack stopped behaving unpredictably and pulling all-nighters. And Angie was back in control of her life. She got stuck into work and started seeing her friends. With a new balance she found that she was enjoying motherhood again and after a while it was easy to forget those difficult months and crave pregnancy and newborns. But this time Angie was not going to be caught off guard, she was the one in control.

Ellie and Freddy were planned with military precision and born by elective caesarean. After each birth she returned to work within six months and when she kissed little Freddy goodbye, handed him over to the nanny and departed for the office, she told Jack, ‘I’m done.’

He probably would have been happy to keep going until they’d birthed an entire football team but he knew better than to push her. They had four children, the big family that they wanted, and it was time to close the baby chapter of their life and move forward to the next stage. She was really looking forward to it, too. Now she could focus on her career, knowing that there were no more extended breaks ahead of her, and enjoy watching her four amazing, unique children grow up at the same time. For a while, everything went according to plan – the children bloomed, she got a new job with a bigger firm and life was good. Until it wasn’t.

8

‘Ah, it’s good to be home,’ Alan said, as he sank down into his favourite armchair and put a hand over his bloated belly. They had just got back from their Christmas road trip, visiting both sets of parents before returning home to bring in the New Year. As Sophie busied herself with unpacking, putting the washing on and finding innovative ways to store the children’s new toys, she glanced at her husband who had dozed off in the chair, sleeping off the enormous amounts of food they had consumed over the previous few days.

It had been a great Christmas, as it always was, full of family time, playing games with the kids and generally chilling out. She was looking forward to a few more days of laziness before Alan returned to work, Tom and Katie returned to school and life went back to its normal pace again. She thought about her New Year’s resolutions, which she made every year out of habit but rarely kept to beyond the first couple of weeks. This year they consisted of the usual: lose a stone, drink less and work out what to do about her career.