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I watched as she bustled around the room, taking off her white coat and hanging it up, blowing out candles now that her last patient had been seen, pausing occasionally, to touch her forehead, as if still a bit weak from her exertions. Then I noticed, as she bent down to blow out the last candle on the floor, that her cardigan fell forward on one side, as if it was weighted down.

‘Mum, what's in your pocket?’ I said sharply.

She straightened up and swung around, her hand shooting into it protectively. She looked defensive.

‘Nothing.’

‘Oooh, Mum!’

There then ensued a rather unseemly little tussle, the details of which I won't bore you with, and of which I'm not particularly proud either, but suffice to say, moments later, as we parted, panting, I was the victor. My right hand was held aloft, as she leaped for it, like a terrier for a ball, and in it, was a warm, squidgy object, like a bean bag, which I suddenly realized was hot.

‘A handwarmer!’ I spluttered, opening my palm and reading on the side that it was intended for shooting or skiing purposes. ‘Bloody hell, Mum!’

‘Only to get it going,’ she hissed. ‘Sometimes the transference needs a bit of jump-starting.’

‘So mean,’ said Anna later, as we drove home, her eyes hot with tears. ‘So harsh, Mum, to come marching in with it, and plonk it down on the kitchen table like Exhibit A. Poor, poor Granny!’

She hadn't been poor so much as utterly defiant and unrepentant, I thought privately. Hadn't hung her head in shame, but had kept spouting the rubbish about jump-starting, and everyone else had soothed and agreed, and I'd been incandescent with irritation.

‘But can't you see you're just encouraging her?’ I'd spluttered, as Felicity – who always cooked, whether lunch was at her house or Mum's – put a roast chicken on the table. ‘She's only going to hoodwink some poor susceptible student out of their grant – can't you see it's immoral?’

‘But if they go away feeling better, so what?’ Anna had demanded. ‘I bet you felt better when you stood up, and I know I did. So what's the difference?’

I'd opened my mouth to protest, looked to Ant for support, but he'd just shrugged noncommittally, and I wondered if he, like me, was wondering what our very blessed daughter had to feel better about. I'd shut my mouth, impotently. Mum had looked smug, glancing around the table for more support, which didn't do much for her cause, and which happily, my family hadn't given. Felicity had swiftly changed the subject, asking Ant how his new book was coming on, if he was having to do much research, how he was finding jiggling his timetable with his writing, and whilst they talked shop and Anna joined in, Mum looked triumphantly at me, so that it was as if she had won, because whilst the others talked academia, I was left with her, like her, the silly ones: the one who'd warmed her silly hand, and the one who'd made a silly fuss.

That night, in bed, after Anna had sloped off to her room – no evenings for Ant and me now, with a teenager who often went to bed after us – after we'd gratefully turned in, we'd held each other close.

‘We have to face this together, Evie,’ he whispered. ‘Otherwise it'll tear us apart.’

I'd nearly wept with relief. He was right. So right.

‘What shall we do?’ I whispered, hanging to that ‘we’ for dear life; knowing that whatever was threatening to rip us apart must surely bring us together.

‘I must write to her. But I'll show you the letter first. No secrets. And, Evie, if she wants to meet me, then I have to do that. You must see that.’

He drew back on the pillows to look at me, to gauge the impact of this: his face was racked with anguish, and I thought how dreadful this was for him, and I'd only thought it was dreadful for me. Nevertheless I trembled. I didn't show it, but this coward soul of mine quaked.

‘Yes,’ I whispered, knowing he was right.

‘She has to know who her father is. And that's all it'll be, I'm convinced. To know, after all these years. To set eyes on me. She'll have her own father, I'm sure.’

‘Yes,’ I said