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waiting for him to wake up at seven for his morning bottle, so I’m a bit tired.’
    I had never seen eyes actually glaze over before – but I could have put a cherry on top of Marj’s. And it began to dawn on me that I was as boring and moany as my antenatal friends.
    After the first week, Marj realised that my world had narrowed alarmingly and I had no other stories to tell. I started eating lunch at my desk the following week and discovered Marj’s new Saturday pal was a girl called Tilly who’d just split up with her man, Toby, because he’d sent her a professional portrait photograph of himself.
    Each morning, I felt like I’d worked a full shift by nine-thirty, and I would spend the day in a cyclical wasteland of forgetfulness. I would sit at my desk staring at my over-filled diary and then, as if someone had yelled, ‘On your marks, get set, GO!’, I would bound from said desk with all the purpose of a champion hurdler and stride out of the room, only to stop, bewildered, halfway along the corridor. Why had I left my desk? I would then walk backwards and try to retrace my steps. Usually, I’d just forgotten that I needed a pee.
    I began to wonder how I’d ever managed the job. Before long, I had thirty cases: five children on thechild protection register, another ten in care, and the rest on the brink of being taken into it. I had angry parents yelling at me on the phone, or waiting to yell at me in reception. I had admin staff refusing to type reports for me. I had managers with questions I couldn’t answer – ‘What did the head teacher say about the carpet-fitting knife, Krissie?’ ‘Were the leg burns fresh?’ ‘Calves swollen?’ ‘Did she actually buy some pork sausages?’ ‘Was it blue or yellow valium?’
    I got home late most nights, having visited houses to talk in riddles.
    ‘Do you mind if we come in?’ (We’re coming in.)
    ‘An anonymous source said Rachel was on the step for an hour last night.’ (You are guilty of child neglect, and your neighbour is watching.)
    ‘I can see needles under the television.’ (You’re a liar.)
    ‘Do you mind if we take her with us for the night?’ (We’re taking her, no matter what you say.)
    When I finally got home after work, I would spend the night worrying about Jimmy Barr’s uncle who was getting out of prison, about Bob being beaten, Rob being touched, Jane being left in her buggy outside the pub. It was the hardest, most relentless of jobs, and I had lost the strength to cope with it and the confidence to judge others when my own parenting was so crap.
    After a few weeks of stopping, puzzled, in corridorsand lecturing bad parents about safe drug use and appropriate boundaries, I fainted.
    Sarah picked me up from work that day, then rang my mum and asked her if she and Dad could look after Robbie for the night. After some hushed conversation between the two of them, Sarah put me in the spare bed in her beautiful house with a happy film and a hot chocolate and a kiss on the forehead.
    As I lay there watching television with soft warm lighting and no baby, I loved Sarah more than I had ever loved her. Sarah, who always looked after me, always protected me.
    And when she told me the next morning that work had agreed that I should have a break and that she and my parents had agreed it would be good if they looked after Robbie so that I could go on a camping holiday with her and Kyle the following week, I loved her even more.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Something changed in Krissie when she woke the next morning. Perhaps it was having a full night’s sleep, perhaps it was the idea of a week in the Highlands with no responsibilities. Whatever it was, she felt different, she felt good, and she was going to make some changes, be a better person. She formulated a good-mother strategy in her head that involved sacrifice, greater patience and eventual joy.
    After breakfast with Sarah, she decided to go shopping. An autumn wardrobe would help her pick up