2. Now

My heart does a little flutter. Jenna's given herself a blunt cut, just below her ears, exposing her long, vulnerable neck. I stare at her bare throat and think, She'll still be pretty, she can't not be, and if she wants her hair like that, then it's her choice, isn't it? Everyone needs a change sometimes.

‘Oh, Jenna, what—' starts Dan, but I cut him off with a hand on his leg.

‘I think it looks lovely,' I say.

Ava coughs. ‘Very nice.'

I smile over at Ava and she smiles back. That'll count for something, won't it? Ava is older than her, popular.

Jenna takes a bottle from the fridge and walks out of the room. I try to catch her eye, but she doesn't look over. My heart hurts for her.

‘Little lady,' calls my father. ‘You say good morning to your family.' He smiles at the doorway.

‘Sorry Father,' I say, knowing how much he cares about manners. I excuse myself and hurry after her.

Or pretend to.

Really, I go back to the extension, to our living room. Jenna has probably escaped to the greenhouse as she has done since she was little. She needs space.

I reply to messages on Vinted till I hear Ash's car engine purring in the driveway and Ava yelling, ‘Jennaaaaa! Jen! Jen! Jennaaaaa!' over and over as though my daughter is a cat. Ava can be playful like that.

I hurry down. Ava peers into our hallway from her laundry. A smile flashes onto her face, just like her father's. She looks so smart in her purple blazer with its yellow piping, the lighthouse logo on the breast.

‘Don't worry, I'll take her,' I say.

She shrugs and blows a kiss as she runs off.

Rather than traipsing about, I text Jenna, telling her to meet at the car. I check myself in the hall mirror. I'm wearing a tiered, bottle-green linen dress with balloon sleeves. It might be a bit warm but I hate exposing my arms.

I slip on my Birkenstocks and head for the old grain store we use as a garage. I try to ignore the long scratch down the side of my green Mini and wait till Jenna finally climbs in with her new hair and red backpack.

Her neck is so pale.

Jenna's big black headphones shout ‘I don't want to talk' as loudly as her forward stare and set jaw. She's really a very sweet girl, but sometimes she likes to be a bit dramatic. I'd reach over and try to hug it out of her, but she'd just push me away.

The sun is out. It hasn't rained in days. As I pull out from the long drive into the lane, dry dust mingles with the fresh sea air. I wind down my window. It's nice to steal a moment with my baby, even in silence.

I've always found her presence calms me. Even when she was a tiny screaming thing. It's as though because it's my job to take care of her, when she's upset I can just separate myself from the stress, put it aside for the moment, and in some ways it's actually peaceful. The world seems distant, quiet.

But today, the void begins to fill with annoying thoughts.

Things have been going wrong recently. Little things. Then bigger things. Then a whole multitude of potentially life-changing mini catastrophes.

I've been doing so well, keeping on the bright side. But then yesterday, I walked out of Morrisons, very much holding it together, humming even, and I saw the long, deep groove carved into the side of my car, all the way from the back, across the door, over the front wheel arch.

I stared at it, working my lips back into a smile.

Shit happens. Get over it, I thought.

What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger, I thought.

Be the sunshine, I thought. I had read it on a cushion earlier.

But here was proof, more proof, that someone was out to get me, and I started crying. Maybe even thumping the side of my car.

And then Lydia Godfrey was standing beside me, biting her lip, not knowing quite what to do with those huge, cat-like eyes. She's the mother of my daughter's best friend. And one of the last people I would want to see me like this. Though once upon a time we'd been close.

I hadn't thought for a moment anyone I knew would be all the way out here. I specifically chose this Morrisons, miles away from Port Emblyn, because I didn't want anyone to know that these days, instead of running a gallery as I have for years and like my husband still believes, I stack shelves and re-sticker puffy ready meals about to go past their sell-by date.

It's just a stop-gap, until I find something better.

But of course, if anyone were going to find out, it would be Lydia.

We barely spoke after we left school, but then our daughters became inseparable. Since then we've only swapped practical information and the scantest of pleasantries.

‘I'm fine,' I said. ‘I just… Someone keyed my car.'

She bit her lip and looked around as if maybe someone else could come and deal with me. ‘Uh, would you like a coffee?'

I shrugged, then nodded, suddenly desperate to talk to her – we had been such good friends! We used to lie on the beach and tell each other everything, copy homework, cover for the other if we were skiving. She hadn't been my best friend, no, that had been Georgia, and then Mina, but I missed her – I had missed her terribly over the years. After what happened.

So, I ushered her across the road to a greasy spoon on the corner and it all spilled out of me: I told Lydia how I'd gone round town putting up posters for an exhibition, and the next day they'd all disappeared – it had happened three times; then someone had stolen one of my cards and rung up an enormous bill on bizarre things – caviar, a special memory foam leg pillow, a flight to Miami, a handmade harp, a selection of sex toys; and then I'd got sick – really sick, throwing up for days – and I'd been out of action for two weeks. And then I'd lost my job and my boss wouldn't even tell me why.

I could still see his lined face, fed up, embarrassed. ‘You know why, Frances,' he'd said.

I blinked the image away and focused on Lydia, blowing her tea, nodding carefully to my list of complaints.

I took a deep breath. ‘And then, one morning…'

Lydia finally looked up from her cup. ‘What?'

‘Someone sent me a photo in a card from my gallery.'

She sat forward. ‘Of what?'

‘Some otters swimming underwater. Rebecca Stockitt. She's a local artist.'

‘Not the card.'

I stirred my coffee. ‘Of Dan, in bed. With another woman.'

Her mug stilled halfway to her mouth. ‘Who?'

I shook my head. ‘She had her back to the camera.'

She didn't hug me or pat my hand. She just raised her eyebrows and said, ‘So, you think Dan's having an affair and whoever it is has it in for you?'

‘You think it's the woman in the photo?'

She shrugged. ‘How else would they get a photo like that?'

I nodded. Of course.

Then she started crying. I couldn't believe it.

Shehad lost her job at a nursing home and had had to go back into AE. Her husband had been having an affair and had just left her for the floozy.

And then weird stuff, like me. Several kilos of chorizo sausage found rotting in her garden shed. Hundreds of spam calls a day. Six – six! – times now shehad come home to find a squirrel had got in, scratching the walls and furniture, shitting on the carpet.

I almost said, You think someone's out to get you too? but the idea that both Lydia and I were being targeted at the same time wasn't something I wanted to consider.

‘I guess we're just in a rut,' I said.

She laughed. ‘I think it's called karma?'

‘Karma? What did you do?'

She looked at me, incredulous, then leant forward. ‘Don't you ever feel guilty, Frances?'