What are you doing here?’

Wasn’t that one of the questions you should never ask someone in a hospital? ‘It’s my dad.’

The heart attack had come completely out of the blue. Her dad had just retired, had bought himself a new set of golf clubs whilst her mum stockpiled cruise brochures and left them in the toilet for him. Guerrilla marketing for the over-sixties.

The call had come on a Saturday. Just after lunch. Kate had been home with Luke and the kids. Her mum was at the hospital. Could Kate come? She’d been too shaky to drive herself, so Luke had driven her with the kids strapped into the back of the car. They’d been squabbling and fighting over a broken yo-yo and Kate had had to squeeze her fingernails into the palm of her hands not to scream at them. My dad could be dying! Stop arguing about a stupid piece of plastic! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

The shock of seeing him in that bed. He’d looked old. And vulnerable. And not like her dad. She’d just wanted to run. Her mum had gripped her hand. ‘Come on. We have to be here. He would do this for you.’

The taxi arrived at the station, jolting Kate out of her reverie. It was busier than Kate had expected. She made it through customs to the concourse, which was mainly full of adults in ones or twos – but there were a couple of families. She felt a slight pang watching one of the mothers peeling a banana for her little girl. Alice loved bananas. The pang lessened somewhat as she watched the little girl pluck the fruit from its skin and mash it into her mother’s trouser leg.

According to the departures board, her train was leaving shortly, so she headed straight for the platform. About to step on the train, she paused. Was this a ridiculous thing to do? Before last night, this trip to Paris had been a pleasant daydream. Surely every mother of young children fantasised about jumping on a plane or a train – or even a bicycle – and escaping for a couple of days? During long evenings lying next to Thomas, waiting for him to stop rotating 360 degrees and go to bloody sleep, she had mapped out the whole thing in her brain. The secrecy. The clandestine arrangements. The Eiffel Tower. She’d never thought she’d actually go through with it.

It would be so easy to turn around and go home. She hadn’t even sent a text to Luke yet.