‘I want to feel valued, appreciated, needed, like I did when I had my family around me – my whole family. I want someone to love coming home to me and I want to love coming home to them. I want to feel like I’m enough – desirable!’ She thought again of Room 626 . . . ‘The house is so quiet now, and no one needs me, not really. That’s it, Mum. It’s so quiet I can hear myself think, and that’s the problem. I have managed to avoid thinking for decades.’ It’s like I can’t hold it all in much longer . . . ‘I want cards left on my pillow or propped up by the kettle. I want to know where I fit in and I want to feel excited about my future.’ She raised her voice and kicked the table leg. The bread and olive basket jumped and the whole place suddenly seemed very quiet.

Her mum leant forward. ‘Do you think I had choices, Bessie? Do you think most people do? It’s not like you fill out a form and your life gets delivered! It’s not on Amazon! You can’t order it up and wait for it to arrive, swathed in brown paper and in a box that’s too big, and if you don’t like it you can send it back! That’s not how it works . . .’

‘I know that.’

Her mum ignored her.

‘You have to make the changes and take control. Or you can carry on doing what you do – what you have always done – sit at home, feeling envious, anxious and hard done by, and telling yourself that it’s because you ticked the wrong box! Is that the life you want, Bess?’

She gave a wry laugh. ‘It’s not the life I want, but it’s the life I got, Mum. I love my family, but what if I did tick the wrong box?’

Bess remembered at sixteen, watching Philip stop outside the window of her digs, and she had the words lined up on her tongue – ‘I’ve changed my mind, Philip! I’ve changed my mind – take me home!’ – but was not then brave enough to let them leave her mouth. He had turned and waved and she had thought her heart might burst. Placing her palms on the glass, she had cried, ‘Don’t leave me here, Philip! Please don’t leave me!’

‘There you go again,’ her mum said firmly. ‘Nothing has been given to you, nothing has been foisted upon you. You’re the captain of your own ship, the pilot of your own plane!’

‘It’s not that easy. I wish . . .’ Looking at her reflection in the window, Bess studied her face and superimposed it on that of the sixteen-year-old who had woken up on her birthday and admired her teeth, who had pictured herself flying all over the world. ‘I don’t know what I wish.’