I had just finished washing up after tea. Noah had dried the things that wouldn’t break and Poppy dried the rest and put them away. I liked that we were a little self-sufficient team of three, but it might have been nice to have a fourth member of the household to even things out between adults and kids. I was most definitely outnumbered. Still, I was probably better by myself, if the fathers of my children were representative of the rest of the male race, and I was used to doing things my way anyhow.

Me and the kids had planned a quiet evening of crap telly much like every other weekend and I ushered them through to the lounge whilst I got myself a celebratory glass of wine for getting to the end of another Saturday.

‘Mummy,’ shouted Noah from the other room.

‘Don’t shout,’ I shouted back. ‘I’ll be there in a tick.’

‘Mummy, that lady’s outside.’

‘Which lady?’ I asked, putting the wine bottle back in the fridge and wandering through to the front room.

‘That lady,’ said Noah, pointing out of the bay window.

It was the woman from that morning. She was leaning against the iron fence of the playground across the road and just staring at the house. And she looked like she was crying – not that she was making a song and dance about it, but I could tell by the hunch of her shoulders and the tissue in her hand that something had upset her.

I moved away from the window so she wouldn’t see us staring and sat down on the sofa between Poppy and Noah, snatching up the remote control and with it all the power.

‘Shall we watch . . . Casualty?’ It was a regular joke. I didn’t care what we watched, but I always made the kids think that I’d made this massive sacrifice for them so they owed me one. Poppy and Noah groaned, and I laughed and then passed the remote to Poppy. ‘It’s okay,’ I said in my best resigned tone. ‘You choose.’

I could see the woman from where I was sitting. She was still just standing over the road and staring into space. She looked like her world had just ended. Call me a soppy so-and-so but I can’t bear to see people upset and so before I had time to think about it, I was up and at the front door.

‘Are you okay?’ I called out to her.

The woman seemed to come round from wherever her thoughts had taken her and gave me a wide but not entirely convincing smile.

‘Me? God, yes. I’m perfectly fine. I’m just . . .’

You’re just standing in the street and staring at my house like some kind of nutter, I thought.

‘Do you want to come in for a drink or something?’ I heard myself say.