‘I do, Nate. I’m sorry, I just want to forget about this shitty week. Oh, look, there they are.’ She pointed at the group gathered between the car park and the river. ‘How come they’re set up already – what time did Nancy say to arrive?’

Laura glanced at her watch. They weren’t late, but still she wondered how the rest of them managed to have got there and laid out their checked rugs, coolers placed strategically on the corners to stop the babies from crawling too far, or to keep the rugs held down. For a moment she wondered if she’d got the time wrong. All the women were sitting in a huddle, chatting, the men standing. Dave had popped open a can of beer; probably he had another cool box full of them. In the time she’d known them all, Dave had never once assumed anything other than the fact that his wife, Chrissie, would be driving him home.

Nate pulled into a space in the gravel car park beside Nancy’s Audi, and Laura took a deep breath. ‘This actually feels a bit weird,’ she admitted. ‘I haven’t seen any of them in ages.’ She waved back at Nancy, whose arms swung wildly in the air.

‘They’re your friends,’ Nate said. ‘This shouldn’t be weird.’

They weren’t particularly her friends, but she didn’t say as much as she stepped out of the car. The women had been good to have around in the late months of pregnancy and in the early weeks after birth, but they were more like acquaintances now, their varied views on parenting having driven an unspoken wedge between them. Ever since she’d told them she was returning to Morris & Wood, she’d felt herself edging further apart from this group of natural mothers, who’d always managed to make her feel like they were doing a better job than she was.

She stood by Nate as he reached into the back for their sleeping son, then asked Nancy as she came over, ‘Are we late?’

‘Oh, not at all, you’re right on time.’ Nancy gave them both a kiss on the cheek, stroking Bobby gently on the head. ‘We just said at Baby Swim yesterday that if it was a nice morning we’d come down earlier – you know, make the most of the lovely weather.’

And there it was. The first reminder that the other four women still met every week when Laura was at work. Even though she knew Nancy wasn’t the type to do it intentionally, Laura felt a pang of estrangement. Of being an outsider.

‘Do you want me to get the buggy out?’ Laura asked Nate. ‘Bobby could probably do with the sleep.’

‘Oh, what a shame,’ Kay called out from the rug, from which she hadn’t moved. ‘Joe’s looking forward to playing with Bobby. Him being the only other man here,’ she laughed.