Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

And Pam would probably also have agreed that Mia was good for Beckie, who might come back from playing with her with a graze on her hand or a cut on her chin, but bubbling with excitement as she related their latest adventure.

But surely Pam, as a mother, would see the dangers that Neil couldn’t?

Flora was going to have to speak to Neil again. Insist that she really wasn’t happy about Beckie playing with Mia unless they were closely supervised.

‘I – actually, I did a bit of rock climbing myself as a kid,’ admitted Katie, flushing. ‘It’s meant to be good for… for coordination and suppleness…’

‘Well, maybe if it’s properly organised and safe,’ Ailish conceded. ‘On one of those indoor walls or whatever. But the place She takes her is just some Clampit’s farm. Probably not even certified or licensed or anything – it’s just this farmer who’s got a quarry on his land and has decided to make a fast buck by getting a load of kids dangling off it on ropes.’

‘You know,’ said Katie, flushing all the more, ‘I sometimes think we wrap them in cotton wool to an extent that’s – in its way – more of a problem than letting them take some risks.’

Ailish looked at Katie as if she’d just suggested they take their offspring to the nearest motorway and turn them loose on the hard shoulder.

But Katie, for once, wasn’t backing down. ‘Like we did when we were their age – going out playing on our own and getting into scrapes… climbing a drainpipe, or being chased by the parkie, or swimming in a river… Never did us any harm. Quite the opposite.’

‘Maybe you were lucky,’ said Flora, and she couldn’t quite keep the edge from her voice.

Ailish looked at her.

She hastily invented: ‘A boy… in my class at school… this boy, he was drowned in a river. A group of boys were messing around one lunchtime, and he drowned.’

Ailish raised her eyebrows. ‘Were you there?’

Flora could feel her face flushing. Her heart pumping. ‘Not when it happened, but… I was in the playground when the other boys came running back, soaking wet and crying, and… I’ve never liked being in the water since. I think that’s why Beckie doesn’t like swimming – she’s probably picked up my feelings about it.’

Had that been convincing?

Ailish was looking at her oddly.

As the conversation turned to Jasmine and her general wonderfulness, Flora muttered something about checking on how the incineration was going and slipped through the open doors to the garden.

Ailish and Iain’s garden was even bigger than theirs, as they didn’t have an extension on the back of their house. But it wasn’t as nice. Fewer trees and no wild areas – an expanse of perfectly mown grass and a huge area of patio, on which the men had set up the barbeque. There were three large outdoor tables with chairs round them, and one of these had been appropriated by Jasmine and her friends, all with their phones out.

The younger kids were at the end of the garden playing a game involving a lot of rushing around, hysterical laughter and shouting. This was fine, though, as the manicured nature of the garden meant there were no overgrown areas in which they could conceal themselves from adult view. They seemed to be playing harmoniously, but at the first hint of discord Flora would have no qualms about stepping in. She didn’t care how many other parents she offended.

Mia, of course, was doing most of the shouting. Her cousin Thomas seemed to have been cast in the role of an animal of some sort, crawling around on all fours, mouth hanging open.

Thomas was a mouth breather.

He was pretty much airbrushed out of The Chipmunk Show. But Flora liked Thomas a lot. He was a good influence – as easy-going as Beckie but much more cautious, much less adventurous. ‘Mia, don’t !’ he was often heard to exclaim when the three of them were playing together. He could be surprisingly stubborn and forceful if he felt his cousin was going too far. And Mia, equally surprisingly, would always back down when that strict note came into Thomas’s voice.

If Thomas was there, Flora could maybe relax.

The men were clustered around a woman she recognised as a neighbour from a couple of doors down. She was in mid-anecdote, waving a glass of red wine and laughing, and the men were guffawing and striking poses and sucking in their bellies.

She was very attractive, but cleverly attractive, attractive in a way that looked casual and effortless, but which Flora knew was not. Her glossy hair was caught up loosely in a clip at the nape of her neck, and strands of it were coming out, caressing her bare neck and shoulders. She wore a simple khaki sweater with a low, wide neckline, dark skinny jeans and pink trainers.

She reminded Flora a bit of the girls in The Apprentice – the hard, efficient ones, all sleek suits and heels and hair, rather than the poor quirky souls Flora identified with who were obviously just there for the entertainment value. She seemed to remember Ailish saying that this neighbour was an HR consultant, whatever that entailed, always jetting off to London and Birmingham and Belfast. A single career woman with no kids, and therefore suspect in Ailish’s eyes.

She was striking rather than conventionally pretty, with a strong jaw and wide mouth, and had the kind of figure Flora had always envied: slim and leggy but curvaceous. Flora had seen her out jogging in the mornings. She was the kind of woman who regarded her body in the same way as she regarded any other aspect of her life, as something in which she would achieve the highest standard possible within the bounds of a robust cost–benefit analysis.

And what was wrong with that, for God’s sake? It was commendable.

Jasmine take note.

Jasmine was sitting staring expressionlessly at her phone. There was a blank quality to her that Flora always found disturbing – it was more than the usual sullen teenage thing. It was as if the real Jasmine, whoever she was, had shrivelled up and died inside the carapace Ailish had constructed for her.

Princess Jasmine, Ailish called her with the faux-critical humour she specialised in when talking about her daughter. Jasmine, ran the subtext, had the life of a princess thanks to Ailish being a super-mum, and had an aura of royalty about her, a sheen, a polish, a butterfly beauty, for the same reason. Well, that and Ailish’s genes.

Poor Jasmine. A very ordinary girl under relentless pressure to be extraordinary.

Ailish’s main brand.

Stop it. She had to stop this habit of judging she seemed to have fallen into, whether it was Beckie’s friends or the mums at school or her neighbours. It was as if she didn’t want to make friends, as if she didn’t even want Beckie to have any. As if she was determined to see the worst in people so she’d have an excuse to keep them at arm’s length.

Mrs Jenner had asked if there were problems at home.

What she’d meant was: What are you doing that’s messing with Beckie’s head?

She crossed the patio to where Neil was standing with a glass of beer. He was the only man not in Apprentice Woman’s group of swains, preferring instead to examine the contents of the small raised pond.

She sighed. ‘What time is it?’

Neil looked at his watch. ‘Almost 12:30. Hour and a half to go.’

‘Hour and a half to go until what?’ said an amused voice. It was Apprentice Woman, standing raising her eyebrows at them.

‘Oh…’ Flora couldn’t think.

‘Till we can escape,’ said Neil.

‘Neil!’

Apprentice Woman looked behind her, to where the other men were gathered now around the barbeque, and whispered, ‘Is there a tunnel or what?’

Neil didn’t lower his voice. ‘Not for want of the kids trying. They’ve excavated about eight inches so far on our side of the wall.’