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life once,’ Barbara said. ‘Don’t let her do it again. No good will ever come of that woman. No good at all.’
    She picked two mugs of tea up, her hands still shaking, and took them silently out of the kitchen.

I have no idea why he said it, but we were in the middle of having sex – that means about three minutes into it, in his case – and I was going through the motions, as usual. I mean, he has no idea I fake it. I’ve watched that restaurant scene in
When Harry Met Sally
enough times to know how to do it well.
    Anyway, he suddenly put on the voice of that old-fashioned motor-racing commentator in
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
and said, ‘She’s here, she’s here. She’s coming, she’s coming.’
    And the worst part about it was that he actually thought it was funny. Roared with laughter afterwards. And I just knew that I would never even be able to fake it with him again.

3
    ‘Where’s Daddy?’ asked Matilda as she sat down at the kitchen table.
    ‘He had to go to work early.’
    ‘Ohhh … I wanted to play with him.’
    ‘I’m sure he’ll play with you later, when he comes home.’
    ‘Will you play with us too?’ she asked Josh.
    ‘Depends what you’re playing,’ he said, before taking a bite of his toast.
    ‘What do you want to play?’ asked Matilda.
    ‘My guitar.’
    ‘OK. You play that, then,’ she said. ‘And I’ll play the one Mummy and Daddy got you. We can pretend we’re in a band. Daddy can be the singer.’
    Josh smiled at her. They might only be half-siblings but it was hard sometimes to imagine them being any closer.Matilda knew that Josh had a different mum, of course. Knew that he couldn’t remember her and that she’d had to go away and no one knew where she was. She could handle that. But Lydia turning up and being a real person, a real mum who wasn’t her mum, someone who could come between her and Josh, that was another matter entirely.
    If I had to tell her, I would. But not until Josh had made up his mind. And when I did tell her, I wanted to do it in the right way. Not five minutes before she left for school on a Monday morning.
    ‘Are you OK?’ I asked Josh when Matilda ran upstairs a little later to get her uniform on.
    ‘Yeah. Why shouldn’t I be?’
    ‘Just checking, that’s all. It’s been a pretty big weekend.’
    Josh shrugged.
    ‘Well, if you need to talk about anything –’
    ‘Yeah, I know. You’re a registered counsellor.’
    I smiled at him. ‘Just remember that, unlike my clients, you don’t need an appointment.’
    Josh shook his head, took a last gulp of tea and stood up. ‘See you later, then,’ he said on the way out of the kitchen.
    ‘Give your sister a shout for me, please.’
    ‘Tilda, the house is on fire!’
    ‘Thank you, Josh,’ I called after him, before he slammed the front door behind him.
    Had the house really been on fire, it appeared Matilda would have been content to be fried alive rather thancurtail the impromptu puppet show she was staging on the landing. I had to go upstairs and physically remove the puppets from her hands before she reluctantly came downstairs. Her school polo shirt was a bit crumpled, and her skirt was skew-whiff, but as there was nothing new about either of these scenarios I decided to let them go.
    When she got to the hall, I pulled the brush through her long brown hair half a dozen times, popped her hairband in (I had long ago informed her that, as neither I nor her father were capable of plaits and I still had nightmares about the religiously straight fringe I’d had as a child, hairbands were the only option in the hair-styling department) and we were ready to go.
    It was a fifteen-minute walk to the village school in Midgley, along country lanes and footpaths. There was only one road to cross outside the school, which had a lollipop man called George in attendance. No doubt it wouldn’t be long before Matilda wanted to do the walk on her own but, for now, it was a precious part of our