‘You’re lucky to have a man like Mario who puts up with you – he’s a wonder!’ her mum said, gazing out of the window.

Bess stared at her mum, distracted from her train of thought in that moment, as she wrestled with the idea that even her own mother knew she was lucky to have Mario. She wondered with a feeling of dread if that luck might run out. And what then? Alone again, an outcast again . . .

‘I suppose the thing is, I don’t remember having time to make different choices, Mum. Everything has always moved so quickly, too quickly, like someone shoving the menu in front of you and saying, Salad or scampi? When you don’t want either, you might not even want to eat at all! But instead you point at one because you don’t have the confidence to say, Neither, thanks.’

‘You want me to call the waiter? You can change your order.’

‘No, Mum. It was just an example.’ Bess rubbed her forehead. ‘I just don’t remember thinking, Oh! I know what I want: a dormer bungalow and a shitty job in a school canteen, where Sushmita is more valued and better liked and gets more Facebook birthday messages than me. And then when it comes to it, the kids only pop in when it’s convenient for them, and meanwhile, I’m left at home wondering where my life went! It’s like I went from being sixteen with plans of how I wanted to live, to working in a supermarket, before being put on a path that I’ve walked in a straight line, and all because I lost faith in myself. Lost belief that I could be anything more . . .’ She shook her head, thinking of how she had gone from being a teenager with the whole world at her feet to feeling like a failure, not quite up to the mark, mired in self-doubt. And it had happened in a blink. And recently it was like she had fallen so far from that straight path and into a ravine filled with rocks fashioned of shame and guilt and she spent every day scrabbling on them to try and climb her way out. And at fifty-three, Bess was sick of scrabbling.

‘So what is it you actually want?’ her mum asked.