Once Leila had gone, Minnie went to help Bev start unpacking a box of ingredients on the workbench. Minnie had been so distracted by everything else going on, she hadn’t properly registered Bev’s appearance – she looked terrible. She had dark purple circles beneath her eyes and her body hunched in a stoop. She looked as though she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

‘Bev, are you OK?’

Minnie stopped what she was doing and put a hand on Bev’s arm. Bev blinked at her through tired, heavy eyes. ‘Is this related to your forgetfulness, or the eco-anxiety? I’m worried about you Bev,’ Minnie said softly. ‘I’m here if you want to talk.’

‘You’ll think I’m nuts if I try to explain,’ said Bev quietly, her head bowed over the kitchen counter.

‘Try me.’

Bev let out a long, slow exhale.

‘It all started a couple of weeks ago, when I was watching one of these Brian Cox shows on the BBC.’

Minnie nodded encouragingly. Whatever she’d imagined Bev was about to say, she had not imagined it starting with Brian Cox.

‘He was talking about how, if the universe was a day, then our planet’s only been around for a blink of an eye, and if that blink of an eye was another day, humans have only been around for a blink in that blink. Then I got to thinking, if humans have only been around for a blink, then my lifetime is probably only a blink of that blink.’

Minnie was listening attentively but she was already lost. She moved her eyes from side to side trying to keep up.

‘Right,’ she said slowly.

‘And if my life is just a blink in a blink in a blink, then what’s the point in any of it? Nothing I do, nothing I say is ever going to matter in the grand scheme of things. Even if I fixed global warming or invented some spaceship that could get us all to Mars, it wouldn’t mean anything in the long run, would it? And I’m not doing any of those things, am I? I’m just fixing the house and feeding my family and making pies.’ Bev’s face fell when she saw Minnie’s expression of bewilderment. ‘I told you you’d think I’m crazy.’

‘I definitely don’t think you’re crazy Bev, I just, wow … those are pretty heavy thoughts to be having on a Monday morning.’

Alan came back in with a plastic pallet to load up and overheard the tail end of their conversation.

‘Are you telling her about your existential midlife crisis, Bev?’ he asked.

Bev nodded.