A week later, once the show had finished its run, I emailed Emily and invited her over to the flat to chat to us in more detail. It was a Saturday afternoon in early May; Bridget was at rehearsals for that evening’s gig at the White Cross pub. When Emily pulled up outside in her bright red Mini convertible, you ran out and jumped into the car and directed her round to the car park at the back. I could hear the two of you laughing as you approached the back door together and that reassured me a little. I know, I know, you would have told me I was mad or embarrassing or mental – your favourite phrase when it comes to me – but one day you’ll be a mother and you’ll realise it’s not easy letting your children out into the world, especially now with the internet and all that it has brought to our lives.

Once in the kitchen, you invited Emily to sit at the table and made us a pot of tea.

‘What a helpful daughter you have, Mrs Flint,’ Emily said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She is. Thank you for saying so.’

You are helpful, Rosie. I don’t tell you that enough.

Once you’d come to the table and poured the tea, Emily chatted to us some more about the agency. A lot of what she said she’d already told us in the theatre, and of course we’d looked online, but it was good to hear it all again in the calm environment of home.

‘So far I only have nine actors on the books,’ she said. ‘But I have a house in Suffolk, and I plan to run residential workshops in the school holidays with my business partner. I’m doing the rounds of the youth theatres currently. My idea is that I would be a kind of stepping stone to a larger agent. I’m offering a contract that is non-binding so that, should they find someone bigger, they can fly off like birds. Hopefully by then they’ll have had some experience and coaching in a safe and nurturing environment.’ She smiled, her eyes almost closing at the edges.

‘It sounds great,’ you said.

‘Little Red got such rave reviews,’ Emily chatted on, ‘as I’m sure you know. It’s been featured in the Richmond and Twickenham Times, and the Richmond Magazine. Heady heights!’ She chuckled.

‘It’s been on Facebook too,’ you said.

‘I saw that,’ I said. I suppose I was keen to join in.

‘And Twitter,’ Emily chipped in.

‘I don’t do Twitter,’ I said. ‘I’m not really one for all that stuff.’

‘Me neither, Mrs Flint, but it’s the world we live in now, isn’t it? One has to move with the times.’

I bristled. The implication was that I hadn’t, I suppose. But I do have Facebook, don’t I, though I haven’t got a profile picture, nor do I ever post anything, and I only went on so I could be Facebook friends with you and keep an eye out. I know your friends have every social-media gadget or website or app or whatever they’re called under the sun, but I still think it was reasonable to limit you to one. Facebook is more than enough to keep up with your friends, make arrangements and so forth. I know your friends got Facebook when they were twelve and I know you had to wait until you were fourteen. But that’s just it – you were only fourteen, your life open wide to anyone who wanted to look. You’re still only fifteen now, and I’ve read so much about teenagers and the internet and mental health. I can believe it! I can’t imagine what it’s like having to look at all the pictures of a party you weren’t invited to. We never had to cope with that when I was young. If you didn’t make the cut, it was tough but that was it, although I hope to God you never go to the kind of parties I went to. Nothing that went on there would be worthy of Instagram. Unless you want to show people pictures of smashed windows, police hammering on the door, some skank shooting up in the corner. Worse.

Something else occurs to me now, talking to you like this. I wonder if another reason for me not letting you have these things was that I couldn’t see the point. I can’t think of a single thing in my life that I would want to put up there and say, here, look at this. Apart from pictures of you – which you wouldn’t let me post up or stick up, however you say it – what would I have to share? Updates from West Middlesex Hospital records department? Not exactly a thrill a minute, is it? For all that I personally find people’s medical issues fascinating, I understand that so-and-so’s liver failure or whojamaflip’s skin condition would leave most people cold. Maybe if I posted the bottle-inserted-in-the-rectum shots I’d get a following – but I’d soon be Instasnapping my P45 if I did that, so let’s not go there.

‘You’ve gone off on one, Mum,’ you would say to me now if you were awake, if I were talking to you for real.

But I hate social media, and that’s why, when Emily stood up to go and held up her cheap black plastic phone, I thought we’d get along just fine.

‘This thing can’t do your Twittergrams and your Snapfaces and what have you,’ she said, ‘but it’s good enough for phone calls and the old texting, and that’s all I need when I’m out and about.’

I held up what your auntie calls my vintage Samsung. ‘I’ve not quite joined the Apple revolution either, Emily, as you can see.’

She chuckled. ‘Technology is the apple of temptation,’ she said. ‘Question is, who took the first bite, eh? Was it Adam or was it Steve?’

I laughed – what was she on? Did that even make sense? ‘Buggered if I know.’

She limped over to the back door, wincing a little as she went, and paused there a moment.

‘More of a person-to-person person myself,’ she said as she grasped the door handle. ‘Sorry, too many persons in one sentence there. Don’t take it personally.’ She chuckled again, and this time you chuckled too – I think for the same reasons as me. She just comes out with the funniest things without meaning to.

‘Thank you for your time, Emily,’ I said. ‘We’ll be in touch.’

---

‘Oh, Mum, she is so nice,’ you said when you came back into the kitchen after waving her off. You had your arms around me, your nose against my neck. ‘I know she’s only the same age as Auntie Bridge, but she seems more like a granny, don’t you think? Person-to-person person.’ You laughed. ‘Classic. And she knows someone who does headshots for, like, two hundred pounds. That’s really cheap, she said, and she said she can take me. I can pay. I’ve got, like, two hundred pounds in my post-office account.’

‘I haven’t said yes yet,’ I protested, but you didn’t need to know about acting to hear that my conviction was failing.

‘I don’t mind paying for a headshot, Mummy. Honest.’

‘I said we’ll see.’

I didn’t want to take your cash, my darling. But at the same time I think there’s something to be said for putting your money where your mouth is, and that’s exactly what you’d done, offering up your savings like that. Determined, that’s what you were. I’m hoping your determination will pull both of us through now, my love; that it will help us face what we must face.

I hope you’ll appreciate how difficult it was for me, letting Emily into our lives that day. I hope you can acknowledge that I never said how worried I was. And I was, my love. I was terrified. I just want to say that for the record. Even if Emily was the real deal, I knew you were throwing yourself into a world fraught with danger and disappointment. I wondered if it was because you idolised your auntie Bridge so much or whether it was just in the genes. Your dad was a real extrovert too, you know, never needed asking twice to pick up his guitar.

Whatever it was, the thing that made me thaw, that made me change my mind and bite my lip against all that frightened me was this: when you’d joined that theatre group, I’d seen the confidence you’d had when you were little start to come back. I’d seen you grow. And so I fought against myself. I swallowed down my own feelings on the matter as best I could. Like when I’ve arranged flowers in a vase or straightened a picture on a wall or lit the last candle on a birthday cake and I stand back and catch my breath, not daring to move for a moment in case the flowers droop, the picture slips, the candle goes out. So it was with you, my darling. You were blossoming before my very eyes, and at that fragile sight of you, my lungs filled with fresh air.

So when you kissed my cheek and said, ‘Please, Mummy? Please can I sign with Emily?’ I thought: this is our turning point. This is us moving from afterwards to beyond.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘All right. Yes.’