Stay

by Jane Bailey

Genres: Thrillers

Synopsis

'There was so much suspense I could feel my heart pound in my chest... This is the first book I've read by this author and it certainly will not be the last. Loved it!' Twilight Reader, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

It was meant to be Caitlin's perfect summer, but betrayed by her best friend and her boyfriend, she finds herself hitchhiking home alone, heartbroken, and penniless.

When a smiling family pulls up on the roadside to help her on her way, she's relieved - they seem so friendly, safe. And when they offer her a warm bed in their isolated house for the night, she's grateful not to have to travel back alone in the dark. In any case, she's in no rush to get home, where a grave secret is lying in wait to blow her family apart.

One night soon turns into two, and then three. The increasingly spellbinding couple wants her to stay, and why shouldn't she? Their children need a tutor, and the longer she can avoid home, the better. But then an older member of the household warns her to leave immediately. And when her phone suddenly goes missing, when she realises that this perfect family is a perfect lie, it might not be so easy for her to leave...

A brilliantly suspenseful read, perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell, Mark Edwards and Claire Douglas.

Read what everyone is saying about Stay:

'Will blow your mind... Love, love, love Bailey's writing.' Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Fantastic... The very definition of a page-turner. Jane's best yet!! So good! I loved it.' Jackie Kabler, #1 bestselling author of The Perfect Couple

'Gripping and atmospheric... will keep readers guessing until the final pages... A twisty and suspenseful narrative.' readwithmills, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Will really get under your skin.' Mark Edwards, bestselling author of Keep Her Secret

'Intense, keeps-you-hooked... I'd highly recommend this one... Chilling and dark, and the suspense doesn't let up.' Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Unbearably dark and chilling. I couldn't put it down!' Shalini Boland, bestselling author of The Silent Bride

'I literally could not put it down and read it in one sitting.' Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Such a unique and suspenseful piece of drama, masterfully done.' Melanie Golding, #1 bestselling author of Little Darlings

'Wow, what a book' NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 320

Sample

Every weird family is weird in its own way. I should have spotted straight away that this was a weird one. Instead – given the state I was in – I just thought it might be a bit of fun. Rage made me reckless. When I stepped off that ferry at Dover, it wasn’t really the encroaching pandemic I was escaping, although that was definitely creeping off the ferry behind me. Reluctantly, I was going home – until my card refused to pay for a train ticket. Home was still where I was heading when I stood by the side of the road coming out of the port. We’d done it in Italy when we’d been stuck for a lift, and now I was fearless, my arm like gold in the March evening sun as I extended my thumb.

The car looked a bit boho, and the family in it seemed interesting, then intriguing, then seriously crazy. And only later, sinister. But that spring of 2020 was crazy for the world at large. It was easy to get lost, to lose contact. And I was angry with Luke and Lotti and my father. All of which made what happened possible.

I always thought betrayal would be more uniform, like a perfectly square slab of something bitter that you could cut into chunks and work your way through, bit by bit, and then you’d be done with it. But it seemed to be eating me instead, nibble by nibble, reaching further and further into the deepest seams of my self-worth.

I imagined shooting Luke, then gunning Lotti down for good measure. I’d wished him on the ferry with me, so that I could shove him off the back and watch him disappear – shocked – into the foaming wake. But, yes, I know. Adrenaline fuelled by rage. It could never end well.

If I think about it too much, I’ll have to admit that a lot of the anger was with myself. Being blind to hideous betrayal is just about forgivable; but blind to such emotional stinginess, happy to take such tiny crumbs of attention and tell myself it was enough: that’s the worst kind of pathetic. I failed to see Luke’s true intent, when all the while he was feasting greedily on my last teenage year. Part of my job was to attribute cleverness to him, too in awe of him to see that he was just older than me, fairly bright but unoriginal. I do feel shoddy about leaving without giving any explanation to Lotti’s boyfriend, Tom, though. He was a good friend to me. He was the only thin membrane between Luke’s contempt for me and my contempt for myself.

I thought I was having a good time, but now I come to take a good long look at it, it was Luke telling me I was having a great time, like he was doing me a favour as I trailed round Italy after him. But that misses the point. What did he actually give me, apart from low self-esteem and repeated bouts of cystitis? What did he get from me? Well, that is the issue: he used me for something I didn’t even guess at. They both did.

The police were intrigued by how I came to be embroiled with what came later. It’s simple, really.

English drivers seem far more wary of a girl on her own than Italian drivers. For over an hour, no one stops or even toots their horn. I refuse to imagine what would happen if a lone male driver pulled over and there was no Luke skulking in the bushes, waiting to share the lift.

Fucksake. Why on earth am I heading home anyway, since home is the last place I want to go? And I don’t know how I’m going to face my father after what he’s done. So when Marcus pulls over in his cliché of free spirit – a flower-painted Land Rover – and his wife Mimi rolls down the window, I take one look at the faces of their children in the back and I don’t hesitate. I assume this is a picture-book happy family and ask where they’re going.

‘Gloucestershire.’

‘That’ll do fine. I’m heading for Cornwall. Drop me off somewhere.’

The older girl, who must be about twelve or thirteen, gets into the very back seat to make way for me. I take it as politeness, but after a while, I realise she probably wants to be apart from the main body of the family to listen to her music. The little girl sits behind her father, so I sit behind the mother, who twists her head around the seat to look at me, very directly, as if reading something important in me. It’s hard to see much of her, but her hair is long and brown and streaked with auburn, and her eyes are so pale that they seem almost colourless.

‘I’m Mimi, by the way, and this is Marcus.’

Marcus lifts a hand off the wheel and waves, and I see his smile from the side. His arms, stretched out to the wheel, are brown and velvety with dark hair. The thought of making conversation right now is pretty horrifying, but probably the best bet. My head is a cage with tigers in it. I can’t hang about in there for too long.

‘I’m Caitlin,’ I say.

The little girl is staring at me with big eyes. I’m not great around kids. I smile, but she seems coy.

‘Who’s this?’ I look at the soft toy in her lap. She holds it out to me and I take it, examining the floppy arms and legs. It eyes me with tenderness, the gentlest smile sewn on to its muzzle. The best smile I’ve had in days, actually. A donkey. ‘Well, Donkey, what’s your owner called?’ I make the toy whisper in my ear. ‘Dizzy – what? Come again? Dozy – no, wait,’ I make the donkey agitated and come back for another whisper. ‘Oh, that’s a nice name.’

The girl swings her feet back and forth, beginning to smile. ‘What did he say?’

‘Daisy.’

‘That’s me! I’m Daisy! How did you know?’

It’s written in felt pen inside some little trainers on the seat between us. I put the toy back on her lap. ‘That’s one clever donkey you have there.’

‘Henna!’ shouts Mimi, leaning round the seat again. Pale blue. Her eyes are pale blue.

‘Henna!’ shouts Marcus at the girl in the back.

‘What?’ Henna takes an earplug out and sounds annoyed.

‘Caitlin, this is Henna.’

‘Hi.’

‘Henna?’ says the man.

‘What?’

‘Say hello to Caitlin.’

‘Hello, Caitlin.’ She says it in such a sing-song voice that it’s clearly filled with sarcasm. She sullenly puts the earplug back in.

‘I apologise for my daughter,’ says Marcus, without looking round. ‘She’s thirteen.’

‘It’s her hawmans,’ whispers Daisy, very softly.

‘I see. Well, that explains it.’ I wink at Daisy, and she smiles back.

I can see Marcus grinning again. ‘She’ll be all right when she’s twenty-three.’

‘Oh God. I’ve got four years to go myself, then.’

‘You’re nineteen?’ asks Marcus, turning slightly now, so that I see his friendly face. ‘You at uni or something?’

I explain that I’m taking a year off. This isn’t strictly true. Actually, it’s not true at all, but I don’t want to tell them that I flunked my A-level grades hanging out with Luke. I don’t even want to think about that. But he keeps asking questions now, so I change the subject by asking Daisy how old she is. She replies very quietly: ‘I’m five and I like your bracelet.’

‘Thank you. It’s just a cheap old thing.’ I slide the bracelet off my wrist and put it on hers, and she seems awestruck.

So sleepy. I close my eyes and wrestle with a longing for home. The salt wind rushing in from the sea, rocking the little boats and bending the trees into submission; the ragged choughs around the cliffs, the air filled with the screams of gulls and children and fierce scents of seaweed and ozone and chips; the retreating tides leaving warm rock pools, jewelled with weed and anemones; the tingle of woollen jumpers over cold, salt-sticky skin; the grit of sand stuck between toes and tumbled out onto doormats and floors; and inland, the endless damp of winter, the grey, racing clouds, gravelly rain and herringbone walls bright with moss; then the greenness of it all in the lanes, bringing in the gentle ice-cream jingles and grass strimmers and curtains billowing out through summer windows, and old men sitting outside pubs remembering how it was when shoes were a luxury and everyone knew your name.

After a while, Daisy whispers loudly, ‘Mummy! She’s asleep.’ Her little hand is stroking my arm, and comes to rest on my hand, which she takes silently in her own and holds all the way to Membury service station.

‘Caitlin! Caitlin, wake up.’ It’s Mimi. ‘We’re at Membury services, on the M4. If you’re heading for Cornwall, here might be a good place – or Bristol – but it’s getting dark. It’s a bit too dark to be standing by the side of the road on your own.’

‘It’s okay. I’m used to it.’

‘I don’t think it’s safe.’ Marcus has come round to my side of the car and opened my door. He could equally be a hippy or someone who models chunky knitwear leaning on a windswept sea rock. Now he leans on the door frame and I can smell the sweet, musky sweat from his armpit and see the folds of his rust-coloured T-shirt stretch diagonally across his chest. I picture his bare skin, just beneath the cotton. His head is a mass of brown curls falling sideways as he looks in at me. (Pebble beach. Donegal knit.) ‘Why don’t you come with us to Gloucestershire tonight, at least? We can set you on your way tomorrow.’

‘Yes!’ says Daisy, suddenly animated. ‘Come back with us!’

The sun has gone. All the lights from the service station give off a cosy glow against the gloom. I’m still churned up, but a little less so than before. Darkness has cut the throat of the day and left a long red wound on the horizon.

After a coffee and a sandwich, during which Mimi insists I go back with them, I’m already giving in. I don’t even want to see my family at the moment – especially Dad. I check my phone: three messages from Mum asking if I’m back safely. I’ll text her to say I am, but later, and that I’m staying a night or two in Gloucestershire with friends. I don’t see why I should rush back, under the circumstances. I’m quite glad they’re worried about me. They should be. So I push a bunch of euros at Mimi and say, ‘Only if you let me pay for the sandwiches and the drinks. Sorry, I’ve only got euros.’

‘Yay!’ says Daisy.

And that’s how it was decided. I simply slung my rucksack on my shoulder and climbed back into the car – and into the life – of perfect strangers.

I drift into sleep, disturbed only by the sensation of someone – presumably Daisy – playing with my hair, and later placing a coarse blanket over me.

Silence jolts me awake much later as the engine is switched off. It’s pitch black outside, and the artificial light inside the car makes me squint.

‘We thought we’d let you sleep,’ says the woman, after opening the door. ‘You were so tired, poor love.’

I lean forward, trying to get my bearings. Mimi, I remember. I once had a hamster called Mimi. The others are bundling luggage off the car, and slowly I crawl out to join them, not done with sleep but trying to heave it off. ‘Can I help?’

We’re in woodland, as far as I can make out from the light of the car, in some sort of small clearing by a low stone wall.

‘Thank you. We’re all done,’ says the man, putting an arm around my shoulder. Marcus. That’s it: Mimi and Marcus. ‘Let’s get you into bed. You’ve been out like a light.’

I can’t fight it. My body is like lead. I would have been happy to curl up again in the car or at the foot of a tree, but the prospect of a warm bed is too good to turn down. ‘This is so kind of you. I’ll be on my way in the morning, don’t worry.’

‘Stay as long as you want – unless you’re in a hurry to get somewhere.’

I’m certainly not that, but hope it doesn’t show. I mutter something that trails off, and follow the family down a steep wooded path in the darkness, eyes on the torchlight that dances ahead, held by Mimi. Marcus has his hand on my back now, shepherding me gently down the slope, and I’m confused by this, trying to remember if there had been something between us before I’d fallen asleep; and then, realising there’d been nothing, wondering at this hands-on approach of his, and at my slight thrill at his proximity.

Suddenly, several squares of amber light give shape to a spacious stone house tucked into the lap of the wooded incline we’ve just descended. Its back is nestled against a sloping field, with another rising slope in front, but from the side, as we approach, its outline stands out sharply against a sky now stippled with stars.

‘Welcome to Amberside House,’ says Marcus at my shoulder. We walk through a cold utility area hung with cheeses in muslin bags, into a wide flagstoned kitchen with a clutter of objects hanging from the ceiling. And alongside the endless colanders, saucepans, tea towels and fat bunches of herbs, there dangle home-made objets d’art, ranging from macramé and corn dollies to wonky papier mâché animals. I stand and marvel at the room like a child, breathing in a fascinating mix of odours which are suddenly dominated by cigarette smoke and patchouli, as a gravelly voice arrives to greet us.

‘The travellers return! Hey! Welcome back.’

It belongs to a shaggy-haired woman in jeans, who puts her arms around each of them in turn – and then me, after she’s been introduced. (‘Our damsel in distress,’ he calls me.) She feels bony and wizened, although she can’t be more than forty. The woman’s eyes take me in and fix briefly on Mimi; what does this mean? Is it something to do with Marcus’s hand on my shoulder? Does she think I’m a threat? As if. Mimi is perfect, and I’m a slab of lard by comparison. But it bothers me. I hate catching those exchanged glances. They always mean trouble. I won’t think of Luke now, though. Italy is behind me.

‘I trust everything went smoothly on the journey front?’ she asks them.

‘Wonderful, thanks. All well here, Suze?’

‘All good. And I’ve got some news. There are two more—’

Marcus interrupts to explain that Suze has been keeping an eye on things while they’ve been away, and that she lives in Gloucester with her boyfriend, Arrow. Arrow? I must have betrayed some sleepy confusion, because he lifts a tabby cat abruptly out of Daisy’s arms and says, ‘Daisy, take Caitlin up to Bryony’s old room straight away. I’ll read you a story after.’ I note this, and I see that the promise delights her.

The oak stairs have a strip of threadbare reddish carpet running down the centre. Daisy charges up them and gives me a running commentary. There’s still a shyness about her, but now she seems excited. She flings open a bathroom door to reveal an old-fashioned toilet with a wooden seat, ceiling-high cistern and a long pull-chain. Damp is bubbling under the lilac-painted plaster high up on the walls, and the bath – which stands on four rusted clawed feet – has seen better days.

‘That’s Violeta’s room,’ she says, pointing to a door opposite. ‘She’s … um … Remainian and really nice, and down there is Mummy and Daddy’s room and I’m … here!’ She opens a door and leaps inside, turning a circle with her arms out to her sides like a wildly enthusiastic estate agent.

I put my head around and see a patchwork bed covered with animals, walls covered in pictures of animals, and paper creatures dangling from pieces of string. Almost asleep on my feet, I attempt delight: ‘Lovely!’

‘And you’re up here with Henna.’ She gallops up another flight of wooden stairs, at the top of which is a passage with three wooden doors leading off it in a row. She points at each one: ‘Henna … You … Bathroom.’

My door opens on to a simple room with muted blue walls, a low oak-beamed roof and a single wooden bed. The little girl bounds in and tries to find special features to point out. She flicks on the bedside lamp. ‘A lamp!’ She points to a pot of dried flowers on the windowsill: ‘Lavender!’

Where does she get her energy from? I drop my rucksack on the floor and yawn.

She smiles at me and then lunges forward, throwing her arms around my hips and kissing my T-shirt. ‘I’m glad we met you!’

I stroke her chaos of curly hair, a little overcome with the affection in her wide blue eyes. ‘Well, I don’t know where I’d be now if you hadn’t. It’s really kind of you all.’

Footsteps plod up the stairs and Henna walks towards us across the narrow landing. Her thin legs are pale as driftwood in her shorts. ‘Goodnight,’ she says, and hovers.

‘And …?’ whispers Daisy.

‘And sleep in peace. I’m sure you will.’ She goes to push open her bedroom door without the flicker of a smile.

‘Thank you, Henna. You, too.’

I undress with relief and sink into the bed, considering briefly trying to find a T-shirt to act as a nightie, since the warmth of Italy and a bed companion have become even more of a distant memory now that the chill of an English night has drawn in. But as soon as the stiff cotton of the sheets meets my skin, I switch the lamp off and drift into dreams.

I’m woken by a soft sound and a slit of light. Suddenly aware that it’s the bedroom door creaking open, I sit up swiftly. It’s still dark, still night, and only a dim glow from the lower landing lights the shadowy figure in the doorway, who now approaches.

I catch my breath, but say nothing. I’ve become used to dark mornings, glaring sun blocked out by heavy Italian shutters, but the light from beyond the door looks artificial, so it can’t be time to wake up. I can’t tell if I’ve been asleep for hours or just minutes.

The figure sits on the edge of the bed and puts a hand on my bare arm. For a bewildered moment I think I might still be in our flat in Florence, and that Luke has come to say it’s all been a joke, a send-up, and now everything between us will be all right again. But the smell is wrong.

‘Don’t worry,’ says Marcus. ‘It’s me.’

He leans forward and puts his arms around me, squeezing his naked torso against my own.

Whoa!

I catch my breath again and loathe myself for giving a small embarrassed laugh.

‘What is it?’ he asks in a low, amused voice. ‘Not used to being hugged?’

I stutter something, trying to make him out, my eyes becoming accustomed to the dark. He’s wearing jeans and no top and smells of soap. How is he imagining this will work, with smiling Mimi just downstairs? My first inclination is to cover myself, but I don’t. He has shocked me, and made me confused or indignant or something – I can’t say what. I leave my breasts uncovered as a challenge. What’s he going to do, surrounded by his family? I feel like provoking him, knowing that he can do nothing. It gives me back some control.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says gently, stroking my shoulder. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you.’

Knobhead. Even though I don’t voice the word, it helps to replace the other things I have no words for: a resinous scent when my nose was plunged deep into the hair behind his ear; the way his torso fits into mine; the brief holding of my shoulders with a pressure both firm and light as air, thumbs rubbing the curve of them. Strange things I have longed for so much they are as familiar as memories, though dizzyingly new. The word I don’t say, scathing and decisive, fills my head and covers all these startling things like a convenient dust sheet. Knobhead. Who does he think he is?

But. Oh.

Oh, God.

‘Um …’ I say awkwardly. ‘But … Mimi?’

He laughs lightly again. ‘She’ll be up in a minute.’

‘What?’

‘To give you a hug, too.’ He pushes some hair back from my eyes. ‘Don’t worry. It’s what we do here. We always hug everyone before we go to bed. We all do it – to wish our friends peace and to give them sweet dreams.’ He leans forward and kisses me very tenderly on the cheek. ‘You see? That didn’t hurt, did it?’ He gets up and walks to the door. ‘Sleep in peace, Caitlin.’

He’s got to be taking the piss, surely. Although maybe it really is what they do here, and that was why Daisy expected something more from Henna earlier: a hug for the new guest, perhaps?

I’m still trembling after Marcus when the door opens again, and Mimi does indeed come over and repeat the procedure, only this time it’s a simple hug and peck on the cheek.

‘Sleep in peace, Caitlin, and welcome to our home.’

She sits there for a while, gazing at me in the darkness and smelling slightly differently of the same soap. Then she folds her hands gently over mine and says, ‘You are very welcome here.’

And I’m certain that Mimi is smiling.

A slice of sunlight coming between the thick curtains works its way onto my face, and I wake to the sound of someone moving about quietly downstairs. Outside, a blackbird is making a noise, as if defending its territory from a predator. My phone is in my rucksack, so I don’t bother looking at the time. I creep into the bathroom and splash my face with water. The bath has a shower attachment, and I hose myself down, not wanting to disturb Henna if I run a bath. I long for a good, long soak. The shower in Avignon – where I spent my last few days – gave out a dribble, and I haven’t had a proper bath since Florence.

The house seems empty. There’s a hollowness to it, as if it might magnify each small sound. Despite the thin carpet on the stairs, the sense is of stone and wood. The flagstones, when I reach the hallway, have a welcome solidity after so much train and ferry travel.

As soon as I step outside, I can hear Daisy humming somewhere. A blond track winds off to the left across a field and disappears behind bushes. To the right is the steep path up to the woods where we parked last night. Straight opposite the house, beyond some gravel and a flat unkempt area that could have been a garden, a bank rises, grassy and lush, to a barn which is surrounded by beech trees, and higher up again there is a ragged seam of gorse bushes stitching the sky to the land.

I turn and look up at the front of the house. The main body of it is symmetrical, but the window frames – what you can see of them – are painted in alternate shades of blue, mauve and pink. The walls are a pale Cotswold stone, but seem to be supported by a creeper with leaves as big as place mats and alive with small darting creatures; unkempt trellis is broken off at the corners and coming away from the wall in places, wadded behind with more creeper. A climbing rose has meandered all the way up to the eaves, which are smudged with the remains of old swallows’ nests. By the front door sits a stone Buddha with moss growing out of his head, a barbecue made out of broken bricks, and rows of random wellington boots. Off to the left is a rainbow-painted outhouse, and against it leans a paint-spattered easel and a selection of folded wooden chairs, rotting and knitted together with cobwebs. A little way in front of the house is a swing-chair with broken wicker spikes coming out from it like hedgehog quills. It seems a different house from the grand one I walked into last night. This one has an air of neglect, as if children have been allowed to look after their parents’ house for the summer.

Back inside, I walk into a dining room off the hallway. It has a long wooden table and a high stone fireplace. I picture women in sandals making corn dollies around it. I’m still alone in the quietness when I see Mimi through an archway, standing at a kitchen counter, kneading some dough.

She turns slowly, as if she has waited for a moment to absorb my presence first.

‘Caitlin!’ There are those eyes again: startling, pale and blue. She smiles warmly, but her eyes are assessing me somehow. There’s something about me she’s appraising, but I can’t tell what. ‘Come and sit down. Coffee? Did you sleep okay?’

‘Like a log. And yes please – but don’t go to any trouble. Wait for the others.’

She tosses her hair back and laughs, leading me into the kitchen. ‘The others have long gone. I popped in to see if you might be ready for breakfast, but you were out like a light.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry! What time is it?’

She peers at an old-fashioned clock on the wall behind me. ‘Nearly ten. But don’t worry. You must’ve needed it. Now, what can I get you? There’s bread and jam – damson or plum. There’s muesli, yoghurt …’

I’m mortified. I don’t want to be any trouble. In fact, I was hoping, as I nodded off to sleep, that I might impress these people enough to get them to let me stay on a bit. Then I won’t have to face my family. They mentioned it last night, but I didn’t really believe they were being anything but polite. I especially need to impress Mimi, because I’m not sure if she’s picked up on her husband’s rather flirty behaviour towards me. I want to be her friend.

‘Please, I really don’t want to be any trouble.’ But she places in front of me a basket of wholemeal bread, cut in giant chunks, a slab of yellow butter on a dish and a selection of jams. The kettle is purring loudly and she scoops coffee from the drawer of an old coffee mill into a cafetière.

‘Coffee okay? I’ll join you.’

I nod, and watch her movements at the counter as she replaces the little wooden drawer of the coffee mill and pours water onto the coffee. The smell is wonderful. She’s wearing jeans and a berry-coloured cotton vest, and her figure is perfect. Or perhaps it isn’t perfect. It’s the way she moves that’s perfect. Every action is smooth, as if she glides on ice. Her burnished mahogany-brown hair is wavy and almost waist-length. I can’t work out her age, but I think she’s beautiful.

Opposite me, she watches. I know I have to make conversation, otherwise she’ll start to ask me about myself and I’ll have to talk about everything that’s happened, and I really don’t want to do that. Not any of it.

‘So,’ I say, spreading a hunk of bread with jam, ‘is this a working farm? Do you keep animals and that?’

‘Oh no, not any more. We did have a cow once, and until recently a couple of goats and a few chickens. But nothing now.’

‘Ah. So, what do you …?’

‘Marcus has some polytunnels and does … market gardening.’ She flashes me an intense look. ‘And I run a nursery.’

‘A nursery? What – for plants?’

‘No, small children. Well, babies, mostly. It’s quite “niche” actually. It’s for those professional mums who need to go away for periods of time – a few days or a week, maybe – and need to leave their babies somewhere safe.’

‘Oh, like a …’ I want to say ‘like a dog kennel service’, but stop myself, as that would sound as if I disapproved. It actually sounds like a good idea, if you like babies, which I don’t. ‘That sounds like a good idea.’

‘Well, it can be quite lucrative, actually. However, looks like that’s all about to change.’

‘Oh?’ I stuff a large piece of bread and jam in my mouth, so she’ll have to do the talking.

‘Oh, you won’t have heard the news either, then? We’ve been away for a two-week holiday, so we had no idea what was going on. We stayed in a run-down old house in France – lovely place – and we never listen to any news while we’re away. But anyway, on the radio this morning we heard that the schools shut down on Friday.’ Seeing me raise my eyebrows, she explains further: ‘All of them. Primary and secondary. All the schools in England. And nursery – with a few exceptions.’

This is no surprise. We’d left Italy because of the pandemic, and fears that we wouldn’t be able to get out if we didn’t go soon. And then when we reached France – where I stayed just a few days – the virus was already starting to take off.

‘There is one baby I’m expecting. We can still take the children of health-care workers, so …’ She passes me a different jam to try, but I shake my head. ‘And I also help vulnerable women, when I can. So people come and go.’

‘Oh. What, like women in danger?’

‘That’s right. We try and help them get back on their feet and give them some independence.’

‘Oh, wow. That’s … good.’

She’s watching my mouth as it’s chewing. It’s as if she’s an artist examining a model to draw. I focus on the edge of my plate, unsure whe. . .