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isn’t it?’ I said.
    ‘Cake. Has Josh got a birthday cake? Has it got Smarties or sprinkles on it?’
    ‘He’s got a cake but no sprinkles or Smarties. Plenty of chocolate, mind.’
    Josh smiled at me. You were never too old for chocolate, after all.
    I beckoned Matilda to follow me to the larder, where I unveiled the triple chocolate cake I’d made, meticulously following the recipe I’d found on the internet. We had plenty of cookery books with cake recipes in but they all had pictures with them, and I hated making something which I knew wouldn’t look anything like the picture.
    ‘Wow!’ said Matilda, who thankfully tended to be impressed by pure size rather than aesthetic appeal. ‘That looks yummy.’
    ‘Well, hopefully it will taste yummy as well,’ I said.
    We carried the cake over to the table between us. Matilda started singing ‘Happy Birthday’, and Barbara joined in, despite Josh looking a tad embarrassed. Chris opened and closed his mouth the best he could, but I could barely hear any words coming out. I’d put a number sixteen candle in the middle of the cake. It seemed a bit more grown-up than having sixteen candles.
    ‘Don’t forget to make a wish,’ said Barbara as Josh took a deep breath.
    He closed his eyes as he blew, as if he was still a little kid. I had no idea what he wished for. But I did know that it wasn’t the same as whatever Chris was wishing for at that moment.
    * * *
    Barbara waited until the others had gone into the lounge to say something. She stayed in the kitchen on the pretext of giving me a hand with the teas. But I knew from the look on her face that there was something far more important on her agenda.
    ‘What’s bothering him, Alison?’ she asked.
    She might have been a silver-haired grandmother, but there was no mistaking the steel beneath the surface. I wasn’t going to lie to her. I wasn’t even going to be economical with the truth, as I had been earlier. I figured she was bound to find out sooner or later, and I’d rather it came from me.
    ‘Lydia came to the house yesterday,’ I said quietly. ‘She bought Josh the guitar. The other one. The one upstairs.’
    The colour drained from Barbara’s cheeks. It took her a few moments to compose herself enough to be able to speak. When she did so, her voice was shaky.
    ‘Did she see Josh?’
    ‘No. He was at a friend’s house.’
    ‘Chris saw her, though?’
    I nodded.
    Barbara shook her head. ‘She’s got a nerve.’
    There was a tone in Barbara’s voice that I didn’t recognise. She never usually had a bad word to say about anyone.
    ‘She left a letter for Josh,’ I went on. ‘It was in with his card. She apologised for what she did and said she’d like to meet up with him.’
    ‘Chris isn’t going to let him, surely?’
    ‘He’s sixteen, Barbara. It’s not a matter of letting him.’
    ‘He’s still living under your roof. You can still say no to him. He has no idea what she’s like.’
    ‘But that’s just it. He doesn’t know what she’s like. That’s why he’s curious to meet her.’
    ‘Well, I can tell him exactly what she’s like. Save him a lot of time and heartbreak.’
    Barbara’s permanent smile had disappeared from her face. I noticed her hands were shaking.
    ‘He might not even meet her. He’s still making his mind up about what he wants to do.’
    ‘Don’t be taken in by her, Alison. She can be very charming when she wants to be. But you weren’t there. You didn’t see what she did to Chris. To leave a baby the way she did. No mother worth an ounce of anyone’s sympathy would do that. So don’t you start feeling sorry for her.’
    I was taken aback by her tone of voice. The undeniable strength of feeling.
    ‘I just think it’s important that this is Josh’s decision,’ I said. ‘And that we all support him along the way.’
    ‘What about Matilda?’
    ‘She doesn’t know who the woman was.’
    ‘But she saw her?’
    I nodded.
    ‘She ruined Chris’s