ere’s the thing: my parents never talk in low voices.

Especially not to each other.

Now, obviously everybody knows that listening in on other people’s conversations never comes to any good. You usually end up hearing something you’re not supposed to hear or getting stabbed to death like Polonius in Hamlet. So the most sensible thing to do right now is interrupt my parents immediately, or leave before the conversation goes any further.

I have no explanation for why I duck behind the living-room wall and breathe as quietly as I can.

“I’m just so exhausted, Rich,” Annabel continues. “It feels like I’m wading through a thick river of treacle all of the time.”

“You’re not,” Dad says reassuringly. “Judging by the state of our cupboards, I’m pretty sure you’d have eaten that too.”

Then I hear the sound of a gentle smack round the head. “Seriously,” Annabel says, “I had no idea reproduction would be so much work. I would pay really good money to be a reptile or a chicken right now.”

Dad laughs. “You’re not doing this alone, Bels.” There’s a swoosh, which sounds like a shoulder being rubbed. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m tying myself to you like a mitten to its other mitten.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

“Through the coat sleeve of life. With the string of love.”

Annabel laughs. “OK, I think that’s enough of the mitten analogy.”

There’s the sound of a long, sloppy kiss, and I can feel myself making a blurgh face. According to statistics and what I overheard while waiting outside Parents’ Evening, everyone else has parents that are only together For The Sake Of The Children. It makes me feel a bit awkward, knowing that mine have a relationship that is so flagrantly nothing to do with me. They could at least pretend to have no interest in each other.

I’m just getting ready to interrupt when Dad says, “But it still doesn’t answer the question. What about Harriet?”

I abruptly stop breathing.

Annabel sighs. “I don’t know, Rich. I just don’t know. After today” – I can hear her tapping on the table anxiously with a biro – “She can be such hard work sometimes, you know. I don’t think I can handle any more. It’s my first baby, and you know I love her to pieces but …”

My whole body goes numb. But? But?

There isn’t supposed to be a ‘but’.

I poke my head around the edge of the door just in time to see Annabel put her head in her hands as Dad gently kisses the top of her head. “I just think it’s best for everyone if she’s not here.”