Annie opened her manila folder in a businesslike manner. “Well, I think this all sounds very constructive, very positive. Let’s get started, then.”

“Yes, let’s.”

Cat held on tight to Dan’s hand and didn’t look at him.

On Christmas Eve, Cat offered to baby-sit with Maddie while Lyn and Maxine went to the Fish Markets.

She arrived to find the two of them walking around the house on exaggerated tippy-toes. “We just got her down,” explained Lyn. “It was a nightmare. The girls at play group say you only miss one or two and that’s it, afternoon naps finished for good—never to return!”

It seemed to Cat that Lyn was speaking to her about Maddie in a more relaxed, mother-to-mother tone, now she was pregnant. It made Cat feel both humiliated and grateful to think that Lyn had been consciously—or perhaps subconsciously—curtailing her conversation.

“Have you told Mum yet?” asked Lyn, while their mother disappeared into the bathroom to reapply her lipstick.

“No. I’m going to make a family announcement at lunch tomorrow.”

“Cat! Dad knows, Nana knows—you can’t make a family announcement when the only one in the family who doesn’t know is Mum!” said Lyn. “Tell her now.”

Cat sighed. Every conversation with her mother was fraught with danger. It was as if they were former players from competing teams who shared a long and violent history. Sure it all seemed a little silly now but all the old antipathies about unfair penalties were still there just beneath the surface.

Throughout the seventies, until their peace treaty in the eighties, Maxine and Frank had fought, and their three little daughters had fought loyally and bravely alongside them. Lyn took Maxine’s side. Cat took Frank’s side. Gemma took everyone’s side. It was hard to put a decade-long battle behind you.

Maxine reappeared, smelling of Joy and hairspray.

“The Smith family might appreciate receiving that shirt soon,” she remarked to Cat, who was lying on Lyn’s sofa, bare feet dangling off the end.

Cat looked down at her faded T-shirt. “I think they’ve got higher standards.”

Lyn pinched her on the arm.

“I’m pregnant, Mum,” said Cat to the ceiling.

“Oh!” said Maxine. “But I thought you and Dan were having problems.”

Lyn said in an anguished tone, “Mum!” while Cat pulled a cushion out from under her head and held it over her face.

Maxine said, “Well, I am sorry, Lyn. I thought they were. Gemma mentioned something about counseling.”

Cat didn’t need to see her mother’s face to know the lemony expression of distaste that would be pulling at her mouth as she said the word “counseling.” Counseling was something other people did.

Cat took the cushion off her face and sat up. “People get pregnant from having sex, Mum. Not from a perfect marriage. You ought to know that.”

Maxine’s nostrils flared, but she drew herself upright, manicured nails digging into the strap of her handbag. It always astounded Cat—this ability of her mother’s to pack away unsightly emotions, in exactly the same way she transformed unwieldy bed sheets into sharp-edged squares for the linen cupboard.

“I’m sorry, dear. It was just the shock, hearing you say it like that, just lying there on the sofa. It was odd. I’m very happy for you. And for Dan, of course. When are you due? Here, let me give you a kiss.”

Cat sat upright, hugging the cushion to her stomach like a recalcitrant teenager while Maxine pressed cool lips against her cheek.

“Congratulations, dear,” she said. “You’ve cut back on your drinking, I hope.”

As Lyn and Maxine closed the door behind them, Cat lay back on the sofa and thought about the announcement of Lyn’s pregnancy. A special family dinner with Maxine practically gurgling with delight and pride, raising her champagne glass to Michael’s camera, a proud, maternal arm around Lyn’s shoulder.

Cat pressed her palms tenderly against her stomach.

“You and I are going to get along so much better, aren’t we?”

Christmas Day. It began with such promise.

They slept in till ten. Cat could feel the heat in the air when she woke.

Secretly, like she did every morning now, she patted her belly. Good morning, baby. Happy Christmas.

“It’s going to be hot,” she said out loud, stretching and kicking off the sheet. Dan lay on his stomach, his face squashed into his pillow, his arms looped around it.

“Lucky we’re going to the mansion,” he said, his voice muffled. He half lifted his head from the pillow and opened one eye to look at her.

“Happy Christmas, Catriona.”

“Happy Christmas, Daniel.”

It was their thing, calling each other by their full names, whenever they wanted to be funny or portentous or especially loving. It started after their wedding, remembering their wedding vows. “I, Daniel, take you, Catriona, to be my wife…” except on their honeymoon it was more likely to be, “I, Daniel, take you, Catriona, to f**k your brains out.”

No one’s brains had been f**ked out lately, of course. She’d let him back into the bedroom after three nights on the sofa bed, and ever since the news about the baby she’d stopped flinching violently every time his arm accidentally brushed against hers, but there was still an invisible, uncrossable line down the middle of their bed. Well, not quite down the middle. Cat’s half—the wronged-party half—was a touch more generous.