It was impossible not to think of Jake and Daniel, intoxicated with the first flush of love and all the expectations of the newly wed. Their faces had split with joy as she and Mario waved them off on their honeymoon only a week ago. Their wedding had been a hastily organised and intimate affair at the local registry office, followed by a party for their nearest and dearest, here in their modest home in St Albans, where they had drunk Prosecco and danced barefoot on the kitchen floor until the sun came up.

And of course she was happy that Jake was happy, but how she wished she could go back to when Natalie lived in her pink-themed bedroom, running home from school to fret over homework or boys and Jake lived in his own pink-themed bedroom, running home from school to fret over homework or boys. How she had loved sleeping with her children just along the hallway, calling out when they needed her. And the four of them, sitting at the kitchen table, passing the ketchup, laughing over silliness and feeling in those moments like they were safe behind their front door, where just being together meant they kept the real world at bay. It was all she had ever wanted, a life she loved.

It was as if, when the kids were young and at home, she had recreated the happy home of her childhood with Philip and her parents around their breakfast table, her mum fussing, her dad going along with it all and with love – deep, unshakeable love – as their glue. But now Jake was a married man and Natalie a busy woman and they had homes of their own, which were slick, grey, glossy and uncluttered. Homes where she had no hand in the decor and no say in bedtimes or what food was put on the table.

Chutney jumped from the mattress and followed Mario into the bathroom along the hall. Bess, like Chutney, had no choice other than to listen to him pee. She sat up, swallowing the bitter tang of nastiness on her tongue, caused by teeth that needed cleaning and, she suspected, not helped by the crumbling molar at the back of her mouth on the right.

The sound of Mario’s footsteps now going down the stairs and the pit-a-pat of Chutney following drew her from her thoughts. She took her time, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and reaching for the pink fleece dressing gown that her daughter had put into the charity box a year or so ago. Bess, having retrieved it, had been wearing it ever since. It might have been the summer, but she liked the snug feeling of the soft fleece on her skin.