‘I had . . .’ She coughed to clear her throat. ‘I had a baby.’

‘You . . . you what? What do you mean?’ he asked, in the manner of someone who had misheard, misunderstood or both.

‘I . . . I had a baby. She’s . . . she’s my daughter.’

Mario seemed to slump in the bed. Bess could feel the pulse beating fast in her neck. She shrank back against the wall, clutching her knees, weakened by having said the words out loud. It was as if a large boulder had slipped from her gut, leaving her spent and exhausted.

‘I don’t understand!’

‘I had a baby. Before I met you.’ She stared at the man she had married, the man she had tried to build a life with, but a life built on lies because nearly all of her thoughts and all of her sadness were hidden away and withheld. Mario had fallen in love with someone he had only ever seen half of, and the half she had shared was not mired in shame but a loving, devoted mum to Jake and Natalie, the half that on occasion in the early years had shone. But as the years passed, that shine had been dulled by the guilt of all she contained, making it harder and harder for her to pretend.

‘When did you have her?’ He was a little breathless.

‘When I was sixteen.’ She pictured herself at sixteen, lying in bed and running her hand over the swell of her stomach, knowing she had done this terrible thing for which she would be judged, and knowing that her heart would forever break as she judged herself. Lawrence never knew – it would have made everything infinitely worse – and of course she had refused to tell Michelle, who she knew was lost to her, watching as her friend spent time with her Lawrie, held hands with her Lawrie, got engaged to her Lawrie . . . Her sweet friend. Her best friend.

‘So now she must be . . .’

Bess didn’t need to do the maths. ‘She’s thirty-six.’

‘Jesus!’

‘I was only a little girl, really.’ She picked at the loose, long twists of the shag pile rug by the side of the bed, remembering how she had felt when her pregnancy was confirmed, like she was floating, like she might lose her reason, like she was broken – soiled, damaged, and shaken by a fear so powerful that she knew she would rather die than have to face her mum and dad.

‘What did your parents say?’