‘No, Rose, I don’t think they would. I think they’d find it weird and intrusive. And if they have issues concerning their job, or anything that’s affecting their performance here …’ I pause. ‘That would be the mentor’s job, wouldn’t it? To support them with that?’

‘Right, I see your point,’ she says thoughtfully. While Rose is undoubtedly highly talented when it comes to business negotiations, her people skills can be lacking somewhat.

‘I’m delighted that you thought of me for the role, though,’ I add. ‘I mean, I’m flattered.’

‘Well, you were my obvious choice.’

‘Really?’ Perhaps this is a good thing, I reflect; an indication that she views me as a decent communicator, and approachable – or least that I have a reasonably un-scary face.

‘Yes,’ Rose says, repositioning the phone on her desk unnecessarily. ‘I know you don’t talk about it much, Viv. You just work on and on without making a fuss. But I do often see you looking a bit hot.’

The whole drive home, it’s playing in my mind: so that’s how I’m viewed. Not as someone who’s been doing her best at work, and who has managed the last few months pretty admirably, if I say so myself (despite having married an unfaithful clod), and who deserves to stand on the kitchen table shouting ‘I’m brilliant!’ She hasn’t picked up on any of that. She just sees an unremarkable grafter who works on and on without making a fuss.

I’m still huffing internally over this, over-reacting perhaps, while I make pleasantries with the after-school club ladies as I pick up Izzy. It’s still buzzing in my brain as we walk home, and Izzy is chattering happily about the model castle (‘with lights in!’) that they’ve been making from old boxes and junk at after-school club, and her eighth birthday, which is still many weeks away (‘Can I have a party?’).

All the while, I’m thinking, So I don’t make a fuss. Would anyone actually enjoy being described in that way? Not Jules, who has carved out an entirely new, successful career for herself and is clearly loving her life. And not Shelley, who I know makes a fuss on a daily basis – otherwise the numerous families that comprise her caseload wouldn’t have anything like the support she ensures they receive. She deals with child protection issues, alcoholic parents, violent partners, neglect, poverty, mental health issues, drug addiction; she is a walking fuss. Isla, too, makes a fuss in her own persistent, focused way; I know she’s refusing to sit back and accept that the museum may have ‘had its day’, as one of her colleagues suggested recently. As for Penny – her entire life seems to have been fuelled by fuss, from the days when she started selling her clothes on a Portobello market stall to being at the helm of a nationwide fashion chain.