‘Good morning!’ the nicely dressed woman behind the desk said, looking up from the item she was gift-wrapping then immediately down again.

‘Good morning,’ Tully replied brightly.

‘I’m Sophie. If there’s anything I can help you with, just sing out.’

‘Just browsing for now,’ Tully said, plunging into the cosy, cluttered space.

It was still quite shocking to Tully, how easily she played the game. Even as her whole body trembled, she morphed into the role of snobby affluent mother without so much as a thought. She did it on autopilot, the same way she shoved small items into her purse. It was as if she were temporarily inhabited by an alien.

At the back of the room, in a large wicker basket, she spotted a pile of eccentric doorknobs. Tiny little things that would be perfect for a shabby chic bedside table. She fingered one carefully, already feeling her anxiety abate. She never, at any point, decided to take it, no more than she ever decided to breathe. Rather, it was like getting swept up in a hurricane. Her purse was already unzipped when the saleswoman, Sophie, suddenly appeared beside her.

‘I love those doorknobs,’ she said. ‘Did you have a piece of furniture in mind for them?’

The doorknob slipped through Tully’s fingers and went clattering to the ground.

‘Whoops!’ Tully said. ‘I’m a bit jittery today.’

‘I noticed.’ The saleswoman bobbed down to grab it, then continued to hold it in her own hand. Her expression was a little warier now. ‘You live around here, don’t you? I think I’ve seen you with your little boys on the way to the park.’

Tully tried to force herself to smile, to raise her eyebrows with interest, to be the breezy Armadale mother she’d been a few minutes ago. But the skill had deserted her.

‘I noticed because I also have two little boys,’ Sophie said. ‘I bring them in here sometimes, during the school holidays. They stand behind the desk and play shop.’ She smiled. ‘They tell all the customers proudly that it’s their mummy’s shop. It’s so important that our boys are proud of us, don’t you think? I feel like I’m doing my bit for feminism when I make them proud.’

Tully nodded and muttered, ‘Yes, very good.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t catch your name,’ Sophie said.

Tully didn’t want to give the woman her name. She wanted to end this conversation. Leave this shop. She had a bad feeling. But what else could she do? ‘It’s . . . Tully.’

‘Tully,’ Sophie said. ‘That’s pretty. Well, Tully . . . I would hate for your little boys to feel anything other than proud of you. That’s why I’m going to pretend I don’t know what you were about to do with that doorknob.’

Tully smiled in what she hoped was a polite, indignant fashion. ‘Excuse me?’

‘And I’ll pretend I didn’t see you take a candle the last time you were in here. Because I don’t think that would make your boys proud of you.’