13

Angie locked the front door and followed her children down the steps and onto the street. She quickly kissed Indie and Benji before they had time to object and then she stood and waved as they disappeared down the road on their bikes. Once she could no longer see them, she turned and started making her way in the opposite direction with Ellie and Freddy. They’d got about halfway down the road when she heard Sophie calling out behind her. She waited for them to catch up, Tom and Katie hurtling down the road on their scooters.

‘Hello, stranger, long time no see!’ Sophie said when she caught up, catching her breath and linking her arm through Angie’s. ‘What are you doing on the school run?!’

Although they had been back from Greece for over a fortnight, Angie had been lying low. Normally after a holiday she returned home feeling fully charged and ready to rejoin the rat race. But this time she had felt horribly deflated and she couldn’t shake the feeling off.

She hadn’t expected the holiday to be such an emotional roller coaster. She’d convinced herself that a couple of weeks in the sun was just what she needed to shake off her low mood and for the first few days it had been the perfect antidote. She had sunbathed alongside Sophie, played games in the pool with the children, swam in the crystal-clear ocean and spent evenings under a starry sky, drinking exceptional Greek wine and putting the world to rights. She and Jack had been their usual power pair, the ultimate hosts and the life and soul of the party, and she had enjoyed slotting back into the role that they’d been famous for in their old south London life.

Okay, so Jack might have embarrassed her once or twice – like when he’d told her to strip off in front of Sophie and Alan, or suggested they all go skinny dipping together one evening, or tried to persuade Alan to go out clubbing with him – but she’d laughed it off as she always had done in the past. She had even been contemplating how silly she was to worry she was having some sort of breakdown when all she had needed was a holiday. But then the row with Indie had completely shattered her illusion that a bit of sun, sea and sand could solve all her problems.

When Indie had marched into the villa, it had been obvious that she was in one of her famous dark and stormy moods. Usually Angie preferred to leave her to it until she had calmed down and they could have a more rational conversation, but in her foolishly blissful holiday mode, she decided to go up straight away. It had been like walking into the lion’s den.

‘Darling, what’s wrong?’ she asked, discovering Indie lying face down on the bed, her long dark hair falling all around her. She reached out to stroke it but Indie batted her away.