I open my eyes from my musing just as Maisie emerges from the dance school entrance.

I love moments like this, when she’s completely absorbed in her friends, her life, and doesn’t know I’m watching her.

Her face is ruddy from ballet class, her smile bright and alive as she skips down the steps clutching her new pink and silver dance bag Mum bought her last week. She spoils her.

Maisie is flanked by Sandeep and Zoe, her two best dance friends. She has a lot of categories of friends: school friends, dance friends and performance art friends. Several of them overlap.

Sandeep goes to Maisie’s school but Zoe goes to an independent school out of town. Her family lives in the big house with a corner plot at the end of our street.

I’m on friendly terms with lots of the mums, but because of my recent studies and working full-time, I rarely find time to meet for coffee or tea at one of the many café bars in the centre of West Bridgford, as lots of them do.

Zoe shows the other two something on her phone screen and they collapse into giggles.

Then they’re hugging and waving and going their separate ways. Sandeep’s mum crosses the road to meet her daughter and waves to me as Maisie flies towards the car, her dark curls bouncing as she runs. The passenger door is wrenched open and suddenly she is next to me, breathless and vibrant, filling the small space with her zinging energy.

I kiss her on the cheek and start the engine.

‘Good class?’ I ask, checking the mirror and pulling out onto the road, sounding the horn as we pass the girls and their mums, who are deep in conversation.

As usual, I can’t stay to chat, I have to get back home to work, but everyone looks up and waves as we drive past, including Miss Diane, who always steps outside to chat to the parents who collect on foot.

‘Yes, it was a great class, Mum. And guess what? Piper Dent did all her steps wrong and tripped up and hit her head.’ The delight in Maisie’s voice is obvious.

‘Maisie,’ I say, elongating her name with mild reproach. ‘It’s not nice to gloat. Anyone can stumble, including you.’

An impish smile plays on Maisie’s lips.

‘But she wasn’t using her eyes and ears, Mum. She told Miss Diane she already knew the steps and she didn’t want to wait for the rest of us.’

Use your eyes and ears is a phrase the young and impossibly slender Miss Diane tells her dance students repeatedly. It has struck a chord with Maisie and she often uses it in jest to reprimand me or her father if she feels we aren’t paying her full attention.

‘Did Piper hurt herself?’ I ask, thinking of Joanne’s intolerance of people’s mistakes at work and how that might translate into her role as a mother.

‘She said her ankle felt sore and her head hurt, so Miss Diane said she couldn’t join in with the barre exercises, which are her favourite. She had to sit on a chair and just watch for a while because of health and safety. The second we finished class, she ran out crying and her mum came back inside and said she wanted a word with Miss Diane.’

‘Oh dear,’ I say, feeling a pang of sympathy for the teacher.

I feel duty bound to mute my true reaction to Maisie’s tale and say all the right parental things, but privately, I know just what a spoilt little diva Piper Dent is.

Joanne is a powerful influence in the area. As well as being a partner at Walker, Dent and Scott, she owns a portfolio of commercial buildings across the city, including the one the dance school rents.

We’ve all witnessed Piper, who is ten years old, the exact same age as Maisie, having a full-scale tantrum in the middle of the street. On one occasion, she emerged from the dance school raging, kicking her mother’s gleaming white Mercedes, which is always parked on double yellow lines at the end of a class.

If Joanne happens to forget a post-exercise snack for her daughter, says no to an impromptu sleepover request or a trip to McDonald’s after class, there is always hell to pay.

I can’t imagine what it must feel like to be usurped by one’s ten-year-old daughter. For all Joanne’s professional achievements and tough nature in her court cases, she seems thoroughly incapable of handling the girl.

Piper turns up to the modest dance classes each week wearing the most exquisite tulle creations, sparkling with hand-sewn crystals. The cost of such garments I can’t begin to hazard a guess at.

At the end of class, she’s often to be found outside, twirling and preening whilst a circle of girls, including Maisie, look on in awe, dressed in their own rather dull dance uniform of grey leotard and pink tights.

Rumour has it that at the beginning of the autumn term last year, Miss Diane plucked up courage and broached the subject of Piper wearing the dance school uniform. She was apparently told in no uncertain terms to never mention it again or she’d be looking for new premises for the studio.

So I can kind of understand Maisie’s glee in Piper coming unstuck; my daughter is only human after all.

‘There’s a banana and a carton of orange juice in the glove compartment,’ I tell her. ‘Just to keep you going until we get home.’

‘Ooh good, I’m starving.’ She clicks it open and takes out the food. ‘Mum, can you, me and Dad all watch a film together again tonight, like we did yesterday?’

She glances at me. She has detected something is different at home, but isn’t quite sure what. Shaun argued that she was old enough to understand our decision, but I managed to convince him to wait a while. ‘Until the dust settles a bit,’ I suggested.

‘We’ll not be watching a film tonight, but we will again at the weekend,’ I tell her. ‘Your dad is cooking tea and he’ll be with you later while I’m working.’

‘Working where?’

‘In the spare room.’

A faint scowl settles on her forehead as she finishes peeling her banana and takes a bite without answering.

The traffic lights change as we approach and I slow down to join the queue. While we wait, I turn to Maisie.

‘You like spending more time with your dad during the week, don’t you?’

‘Yes, but…’ She thinks for a moment. ‘I’d like you to be there, too.’

‘I will be there, only I’ll be upstairs. And I’ll see you before you go to bed.’

She looks out of the window and I can no longer see her face.

I’ve promised myself I’m not going to feel guilty about this. It’s a far better arrangement than we had before and I’m confident Maisie will soon get used to it.

Shaun and I now rota the whole week, alternately caring for Maisie during weekdays and scheduling one family activity at the weekend. Simple things like watching a film or walking around the nearby park and feeding the ducks together.

It’s all stuff we never seemed to manage to get around to doing before. Up until now, the majority of Maisie’s care fell upon me, while Shaun got to disappear at least three nights a week.

He works as a freelance photographer and currently gets most of his paid work from a small local newspaper. He also sells some of his photographs to photo libraries, magazines and other periodicals.

When I first met him, he fostered ambitions to get regular work for one of the big nationals. Sadly, over time, he seems to have trimmed down his expectations to the extent that he no longer believes he’ll get there.

‘Social media has killed journalism,’ he complains regularly. ‘Nobody wants good old-fashioned reporting any more. By the time you’ve got the lowdown on a story, some eighteen-year-old kid working for a news website has already tweeted it together with a pic emailed in from a member of the public.’

That said, the truth of the matter was that he often scooted out of the house at a moment’s notice when he heard about a scoop. This resulted in me getting behind on my studies on occasion, leaving me no choice but to make up the time at weekends, scuppering any chance of family time.

Maisie has lost out before, but this way, we all win. Especially her. It’s a much fairer arrangement and it seems to work on all levels despite it being contentious in the eyes of some.

OK, I’m talking about my mother.

I haven’t told her everything, but I had to tell her something. The bare bones of it.

‘I’ve never heard anything like it,’ she said curtly when I tried to explain. ‘You two need to sort yourselves out and make it work. Me and your father were married for forty years and it wasn’t all wine and roses, I can tell you that.’

It’s true that Shaun wasn’t as keen as me in the first instance, but even he has now admitted the extra time he’s spending with Maisie is paying dividends.

‘I feel like I’m getting to know her on an emotional level I didn’t really have before,’ he told me. ‘I do miss us, Emma, you and I. But I can’t deny there are advantages to what we’ve done.’

From my own point of view, I feel less tired, less stressed, and without question, I’m less snappy now with both Maisie and Shaun.

We share the housework, having drawn up a rota for duties like the laundry, cleaning the house and food shopping. Theoretically we were supposed to share this stuff before, but somehow it always seemed to fall to me to fill in on the numerous occasions Shaun forgot or was called away on a local story. Now, it all feels far more equitable.

Aside from the bickering between us, mostly about his career, I’d always encouraged him to keep at it, to keep trying. It was the waste of talent that bothered me. I just couldn’t understand his lack of ambition. It annoyed and concerned me in equal measure.

On top of that, we could have done with the money any extra work might bring in. We’ve always managed, but it would have been nice to have a little spare after we’d paid the household bills.

‘You need to find a way of getting the stories other people miss,’ I suggested on more than one occasion. ‘Sniff them out like a terrier and be ready and waiting for the big snap. Don’t worry about stepping on other people’s toes, just go for it.’

Just a few encouraging words, I thought at the time. I didn’t have a clue he’d actually take any notice of them.

But the last couple of weeks, there’s been another development I didn’t expect. Something that could complicate and scupper everything we’ve planned to achieve a stable and balanced home life.

I think Shaun may be seeing someone else.