I woke the following day, unaware I’d slept for fourteen hours until I glanced at the time on my phone. There were also about twenty texts and at least ten missed calls from Dan, which gave me a little sparkle but at the same time made my stomach dip when I remembered there were now four of us in this relationship. I had to take most of the blame for this: like Emma said, I was the one who dumped him and told him never to darken my doorstep again. I couldn’t turn back the clock, it was done, and now I was filled with this overwhelming sadness and loss, because what we’d had was changed forever.

I turned the sound on my phone back on and just as I did, he called. I gave it a few seconds – I didn’t want him to think I’d been waiting for this – also, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to say.

‘Faye…’ he started. ‘Where’ve you been?’

‘I was asleep, the jet lag finally got me,’ I said.

That awkward silence filled the air again. There was so much to say, it was difficult to know where to begin.

‘I’m sorry…’ we both said at exactly the same time, then both giggled.

‘No, Dan, you’ve nothing to be sorry about. I told you to go and live your life and you did. And I lived mine for a little while and then when it suited me, I thought I could step back into yours.’

‘But it’s what I want, I just need to sort things out. Can you give me some time?’

‘Yes, I think it might be an idea if I left you to deal with things. I’m going to take a couple of days to explore – I fancy just heading out and seeing a bit of the area. I know you have commitments and I don’t want to put you under pressure,’ I said, knowing I also needed some time out to get my head round how I felt. ‘I overreacted yesterday,’ I added. ‘I was tired and emotional and just never expected…’

‘How could you expect something like this?’ he sighed. ‘If I’m honest, it took me a while to get used to the idea myself… Jeez, Faye, as upset as you were yesterday, it was a relief for me to tell you. I feel so much better now that you know.’

‘Oh, I’m glad you feel better,’ I joked. ‘I feel like I’ve been in a spin dryer and my head’s about to come off.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Yes, I do. It’s madness, isn’t it? When we met I was married and you were free as a bird, and here I am with my wings intact, rucksack on my back and I’m ready to fly. And there you are, changing nappies.’

‘Yeah, it’s a bit relentless, this baby thing,’ he laughed, ‘and she keeps wanting milk too, then she cries a lot and it’s back to the nappy again… What’s all that about?’

I laughed. ‘Yep, it never lets up. No one tells you that being a parent means you spend the rest of your life looking like you need a shower, a night’s sleep, and a strong drink… all of which you do. But you don’t have the time, because your child always want something and their needs become the priority and that never changes.’

I remembered Emma as a baby, the loneliness of being at home with her all day and the never-ending cycle of nappies and feeding and sleeping. Emma had gone back to work when Rosie was a few months old and I’d gone through it all again, but this time it had been different. I loved caring for Rosie because she was my granddaughter and I had the hang of it by then – but I didn’t envy Dan going through it for the first time. I’d been devastated about Emma and Rosie leaving for Scotland, but I’d been surprised at how much I enjoyed only having myself to look after. A few times after they’d gone, I’d suddenly looked at my watch and thought about picking Rosie up from nursery, then remembered I didn’t have to. And it wasn’t the worst feeling in the world. Having had responsibility for much of my life, it was refreshing to be on my own, just me and wherever I wanted to go. And I was going to continue in that vein while I was here.

‘I’m going sightseeing,’ I heard myself say. I had some ideas about things I wanted to do and I didn’t need Dan or anyone else to show me around. I’d become pretty independent since the end of my marriage and I had no intention of sitting in this hotel room waiting for when Dan was available. I didn’t want him to feel like I was being unfair and punishing him, he had other responsibilities now and I was simply respecting that. ‘I’ll call you in a couple of days,’ I said.

‘No, not in a couple of days. Keep calling me.’ He sounded a little hurt.

‘Okay, I’ll try. But Dan, I’m giving you some space. I know you have a lot to deal with and I want to do my thing too. So let’s stay in touch and talk later in the week?’

He agreed, we said goodbye and I put down the phone, sad he wouldn’t be with me, but excited at the prospect of discovering Sydney on my own.

I stood by the window of the hotel room looking out over concrete and glass, futuristic buildings soared against a backdrop beyond was sea and sky, like two worlds colliding. Dan had chosen well, what a shame we couldn’t have stayed here together as we’d planned. The silver lining was that, deep down, I’d always known he’d be a good dad. His mother’s early death and his brother’s illness had made him run away from pain and responsibility, yet the love and guilt he’d felt had pulled him home. Now, Clover’s presence was the grounding he needed; he would stay in Sydney and build a life with her. I had no idea about the role Saffron would play in Dan’s day-to-day living. It didn’t sound like love, but as he said, they shared a baby, and that was forever. It made me think about my own role in his future: was this something I wanted? Of course I loved Dan, but now he came with so much baggage, it wouldn’t be the life we’d planned. There would be no climbing into a VW van and spontaneously heading off up the coast. I knew what life was like with babies and their equipment. And even if he and Saffron managed to extricate themselves from each other’s daily lives and he and I had a chance, did I want to give away my hard-won freedom to look after another baby?

Because that’s how it would be. To be with Dan would mean being a stepmum to Clover and she was only a few months old, which meant I’d be in my sixties before she was off our hands. I could see that it would be easy to grow fond of little Clover – she was just a tiny baby stuck in the middle of all this adult mess – but her mother was a different matter. I was finding it hard to like Saffron from what I’d heard so far; it seemed she didn’t want the responsibility of a child and was happy to hand her to Dan and run off with her bloody easel the minute things got tough.

There was a lot to think about, and this time I wasn’t going to put myself second, or third down the line when I made my decision. I thought of Mandy, who told me to ‘go for it, bitch’, and I thought yes, this is going to be about what I want – and in Mandy’s voice, I heard myself say, this time it’s all about me, bitch.

I started by getting dressed – faded jeans and a blue T-shirt that showed off my tan. I’d imagined myself wearing these as Dan and I explored the Opera House, but now I’d just do it alone, and I headed off into the blazing white sunshine.

I found a small café, where I had the best eggs and bacon I’d had in a long time – soft, rich-yoked eggs, crisp, salty bacon and a gallon of coffee to see me through the morning. I felt okay, not brilliant, not Amazonian yet – but okay, I was getting there. I’d wasted half my life because of a man (thanks, Craig!) and I wasn’t going to waste this trip because of another. I would discover everything, hold cute Koalas, watch kangaroos, enjoy the galleries, the beaches and the food. And I’d do it all alone – again. But I counted my blessings: I was bloody lucky to be here in this beautiful place of blue skies and white sunshine. I wasn’t going to feel sorry for myself, I was going to make the most of doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it.

I spent the next couple of days planning my time and reading all about Australia from a sunlounger on Bondi Beach. Tough job, but someone had to do it! I devoured the delicious descriptions of ‘the gastronomic allure of Melbourne’, along with photos of stunning roadside vistas of the ocean. I was excited about discovering these new places, but it was tinged with heartbreak and a good old dollop of wet, ugly crying thrown in when I was alone in my hotel room. But I was ready for my next adventure and I would start by doing a dive. Yes, me, Faye Dobson, a forty-six-year-old gran from the Midlands, was going to go diving off some coral reef somewhere in Sydney. I wasn’t sure of the details yet, and hadn’t a clue where to start, but that was part of the fun, wasn’t it?

The ‘Diving Day Course’ was booked up until later in the week, so I reserved my place and decided to stick around the hotel a few more days and be a tourist locally until I could take to the water.

As I donned my factor 30 suncream, a large hat and set off for Sydney Harbour, I felt it was as good a starting point as any. I sent selfies in the sun to Emma, Sue and Mandy, telling them how wonderful it was. Emma responded by sending a kiss and a sunshine emoji, Sue responded by calling me straight away and informed me I had to act quickly because Leo was in Capricorn with several suns rising (or something like that). I told her about Dan and the baby and she said not to worry because my starry alignment was good for a love match. ‘So even if things with Dan don’t work out, there’s a big love on the horizon,’ she announced. ‘You’re young, free and single, the world’s your lobster, love.’

‘I don’t know about the “young” bit,’ I giggled. I wasn’t sure about the lobster bit either, but fortunately I spoke ‘Sue’ and knew what she meant. ‘Thing is, Sue, doesn’t matter how single I am, I can’t just forget Dan and fall in love with someone else.’

‘You must be open, my love,’ she said. ‘You can’t have channel vision when it comes to love – you have to let it in, and trust me there’s a Leo with a big, fluffy mane waiting for you.’

I didn’t fancy the idea of a man with a big fluffy mane, but thanked her anyway, put down the phone and received a text from Mandy in response to my selfie. She asked where ‘Bruce’ was, wanted to know how many times we’d ‘done it’ and posed the question, ‘Have you handled any other bush oysters yet? After all you are “down under”, if you know what I mean?’ She added an emoji, which was frankly disturbing, so I turned off my phone for a while. My friends were lovely, but I needed some quiet in my head and talk of bush oysters and men waiting for me down under with fluffy manes wasn’t doing it. I didn’t want to think about love, or star signs, or sex… or Dan, which was where my mind gravitated to every few seconds. As much as I tried not to think about him and just get on with my day, the sight of a fair-haired man in jeans, or even a good sandwich made me think of him and I turned to mush. His accent was everywhere, his phrasing intruding on my lunch, my nap on a bus, my tour of the Opera House (the guide must have come from next door to where he lived because he sounded so like Dan it was pure agony to hear those raised inflections that made every sentence sound like a question).

As the days passed, I could hear Dan’s voice in my head talking of the waves and though he wasn’t with me, I would listen to his advice and go where he’d wanted to take me. I recalled him telling me about The Surf Pavillion, an old bathhouse on Bondi that had been there since the 1920s. ‘It’s beautiful, a bit of a historical landmark, you know?’ I could hear him saying. I decided that would be my next stop; I packed my beach bag and set off for those famous waves.

So there I was, lying on a towel on the beach, my ‘Diving for Beginners Guide’ across my stomach, to prepare myself for the following day’s dive. I was wearing my new, navy blue one-piece, not the string bikini Mandy had bought me as a ‘going-away gift’. I wasn’t sure what the laws were here, but in the UK, I would be in danger of being arrested for outraging public decency if I wore Mandy’s offering. The sun was beating down, I sipped from a glass of chilled lemonade, and was beginning to think that life could be good again. I wasn’t sure what form that life was going to take, but I was going to stop worrying about it – I couldn’t change anything and when I next saw Dan we’d just have to see where we were. Then above the sound of the waves and the children playing, I heard his voice. But of course it wasn’t his voice, was it? It was just another Australian guy with fair hair on the beach… with a baby?

He was manoeuvring the pushchair over the shifting sand. It wasn’t a smooth ride for that poor baby. He was talking to someone as he grappled with the pushchair and my stomach crumpled like wet tissue paper. It was definitely Dan, and he was walking towards me.