Fiona Gibson - The Great Escape - The laugh-out-loud romantic comedy from the summer bestseller

What Hannah hadn’t realised then was how swiftly and deeply she’d fall in love, and that eighteen months after meeting, Ryan would ask her to move into the house he shared with his children at London Fields, and marry him, and that she’d want to very much.

And now, as she chains up her bike in the small courtyard at Catfish, Hannah feels a sharp twinge of guilt. All the stuff about church weddings and veils and their beautiful mother – of course, none of it is their fault. They’re just kids, she reminds herself. Even Josh still needs constant reminders from Ryan to clean his teeth and not wear the same boxers three days running.

No, it’s up to her to make things work. And she will, Hannah decides, greeting Adele at reception and entering the light, airy space of the design studio. She’ll start with Daisy, because surely it’s easier to befriend a ten-year-old girl than a boy of fourteen. She’ll suggest something simple, like a shopping trip. As Hannah says hi to her colleagues, and pours herself a strong black coffee, she feels a surge of optimism. She and Daisy will have a whole day together – a girlie day – to try on clothes and stop off at cafés where they’ll giggle and chat. It’s a great idea, she realises now. Why didn’t she think of it before?

At Let’s Bounce, ‘York’s Premier Soft Play Experience’, Lou plucks a small object from the ballpool and holds it gingerly between her forefinger and thumb. It’s dark brown and sticky and it occurs to her that, just a few months ago, she’d have retched if she’d had to pick up such a thing with her bare hands. Now, though, it seems like a normal part of her day.

Lou works six shifts a week at Let’s Bounce. Although she was grateful for the job when three shops which stocked her jewellery closed down, she vows that, if she ever has children – and with Spike, it seems increasingly unlikely – she’ll insist that they play on grass and in rivers and never in putrid places like this. Lou knows that parents need somewhere to take their children, especially on rainy days, but she never thinks the adults look happy or even faintly relieved to be here. They slump over plastic plates of chips and baked potatoes and horrible yellowy stuff called coronation chicken, whatever the heck that is, looking as if their lives are teetering on the brink of collapse.

Wrapping the brown squidgy thing in a paper napkin, Lou carries it to the ladies’ loo. While the main play zone is dimly lit – to conceal the decaying food lurking amongst the equipment, Lou suspects – the fluorescent strip in the ladies’ is so unforgiving, she’ll be able to get a proper look at the thing. If it’s poo, or something equally gross, she plans to present it to Dave, her boss, which will hopefully make him do something about the state of the place.

Lou places the paper parcel on the Formica top beside the washbasins and peels it open.

‘Ew, what’s that?’ Steph, Lou’s friend and fellow staff member, has emerged from a cubicle and is eyeing the parcel from a safe distance.

‘Don’t know,’ Lou replies, ‘but I think it might be a squashed muffin. It smells kind of sweet …’

Realising what she’s doing – ie, trying to analyse the lump – Lou quickly re-wraps it and flings it into the plastic bin.

‘I bloody hate this place, Lou,’ Steph mutters, washing her hands and picking a clump of mascara from an eyelash.

‘Me too.’ Lou checks her watch. ‘C’mon, if you hoover and I clear the tables, maybe we’ll get out on time for once.’

‘Yes, boss.’ Steph grins.

Lou smiles back. Thank God for Steph and the rest of the staff here, united in nugget-frying hell. ‘Fancy a quick drink when we’re done?’ she asks.

‘Could murder one,’ Steph replies. She stands back from the mirror, smoothes her hands over her rounded hips and inhales deeply as if summoning the strength to face the mayhem outside.

And it is mayhem. By midday, the blue sky had turned a moody grey, and the onset of rain always brings in the hordes. In her first week here, Lou discovered that things don’t gently wind down towards the end of the day as they do in normal workplaces. No, they wind up . By 5.30 pm the kids are usually so overwrought and exhausted that at least two-thirds are crying, lashing out at their parents and refusing to leave. Plus by that time, their stomachs are swishing with cheap blackcurrant squash and churning with horrible deep-fried nuggets. So they feel sick as well. Some children actually are sick. Compared to mopping up puke, Lou thinks wryly, retrieving a squashed muffin from the ballpool is almost a perk of the job.

‘I don’t wanna go home!’ a little girl wails in the play zone. ‘Wanna climb on the big rope again!’ The mother throws Lou an apologetic look. Lou smiles back. Although the woman looks young – late-twenties perhaps – her shoulder-length bob bears a thick swathe of wiry grey at the front. Perhaps motherhood has done that to her, or she’s just had to endure one too many bleak afternoons at Let’s Bounce. Will that happen to Lou if she works here much longer? She noticed a solitary grey hair nestling among her auburn curls this morning – at thirty-five – a defiant, silvery wire which she yanked out in disgust.

The girl is now darting between the scuffed, primary-coloured tables. ‘Come on , Bethany,’ the woman cajoles, holding out her hand ineffectually.

‘No! I hate you!’

‘They’re closing in a minute,’ the mother adds. ‘Look – all the other boys and girls have gone home. This lady’ – she indicates Lou, who wonders at what point she became a lady – ‘wants to go home and if you don’t come right now, you’ll be locked in all night.’

‘Good!’ the girl thunders. ‘It’d be fun.’

‘Your mum’s right,’ Lou says lightly, dragging the vacuum cleaner with its ‘amusing’ cartoon eyes towards them. ‘But if you don’t mind, I’ve got to hoover up first.’

‘Right. Sorry,’ the woman says, stepping away from a scattering of nuggets on the carpet. Lou switches on the hoover while Steph loads a tray with dirty plates.

The child is now refusing to put on her shoes. ‘Want to help me hoover?’ Lou asks.

The girl eyes her warily. ‘Okay.’ Lou hands the tube to her, quickly glancing around to check that Dave isn’t lurking around. He’d snap that she was contravening health and safety regulations (although discarded food and nappies in the ballpool area don’t seem to bother him one bit).

The girl is hoovering with reasonable efficiency and her mother looks relieved. ‘You’ve done a great job there,’ Lou praises the child.

‘Thanks.’ She grins proudly.

‘You know what?’ the mother adds, clearly grateful for Lou’s intervention, ‘you’re a natural to work somewhere like this.’

Lou smiles and thanks her, but by the time the mother and daughter have left the building, she’s thinking that being a natural at scraping up chips off the carpet was never supposed to be part of the plan.

‘Still fancy that drink?’ Steph asks as they leave, tearing off their tabards and stuffing them into their bags.

Lou thinks about Spike lying around at home, perhaps strumming a guitar but more likely depositing yet more used teabags into the sink. ‘God, yes,’ she declares. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Result,’ Spike says, placing his mobile back on the bedside table.

‘What’s that?’ Astrid asks.

‘Lou’s in the pub, having a drink with her friend from work. Reckon she’ll be a couple of hours at least …’

Astrid laughs and shakes her head in mock despair. ‘You’re terrible, giving her all that crap about rehearsing at Charlie’s. I don’t know how you can live with yourself, Spike.’