The ringing of the doorbell woke Theo, and then came the sound of Griff barking loudly in response. He opened first one eye and then the other. It was 9 a.m., late for them, and as always on weekends it was a joy not to have been roused by the alarm. Anna sat up and rubbed her face. ‘Who’s that?’ She groaned, reaching for the glass of water on her bedside table.

Theo didn’t reply, unable to think of an answer that wasn’t obvious or a little sarcastic, considering he hadn’t yet opened the front door. He threw his sweatshirt over his head and pulled on his pyjama bottoms.

‘Mum! Hello.’ He couldn’t remember the last time she’d turned up at the house without calling first. It was usually when she needed a favour, like the dog walking or plants watering while they were away.

She was clearly agitated, fingering the pearls at her neck and blinking rapidly. Without any pleasantries or preamble, she began. ‘I feel you let me down terribly last night, Theo!’ She’d raised her voice and was speaking pointedly, as if the words had been cued up, waiting to be released. Judging by the dark circles under her eyes, she’d probably been mulling them over since the early hours.

‘Come inside, Mum. Please.’ He stood back with his arms wide, then glanced up the pavement as she marched in, to see if any neighbours were taking an interest. They weren’t.

‘I mean it. You let me down and you were rude!’

‘Please calm down.’

‘Calm down?’ Stella continued at the same pitch. ‘It was important to me! I wanted it to be a pleasant evening. You all knew that. I went to a lot of trouble.’

‘I...’ Theo struggled to know where to begin, torn between voicing his concerns about her and giving in to the anger that was brewing inside him.

‘Morning, Stella. Would you like a cup of tea?’ Anna had come downstairs in her dressing gown. Theo appreciated her soft, placatory tone, which felt like balm on their hot-tempered exchange.

‘No, I do not want a cup of tea. I want an apology!’

‘Right. Well, I’ll pop the kettle on anyway.’ Anna ran her hand over Theo’s waist as she passed, a tactile show of support for which he was grateful. The happy glow of their union still clung to their skin and it would take more than his cranky mother to dampen it.

He followed her into the kitchen and his mother came on behind. Theo and Anna exchanged a knowing look.

‘I mean it.’ Stella’s tone was accusatory. ‘How often do I ask you for anything?’

‘Quite often actually.’ He kept his tone level.

She ignored him. ‘My faith is now a big part of my life and all I asked was that you be civil to Pastor Jules, a guest in my home! My friend! A man of God! And you couldn’t even find the decency—’

A man of God? He swallowed the many unfavourable comments that sprang to mind. ‘Whoa there! I think, Mum, that we just need to slow things down a bit here. Firstly, it might have been an idea to call me, talk to me, and let me know about this big change in your beliefs so that I was a little bit prepared. And secondly, the man’s a charlatan. He went way over the top last night, he was invasive and out of line.’

Behind his mother’s back, Anna pulled a disapproving face at his frankness.

‘That’s what Pastor Jules says people with closed minds and people who don’t have his vision will say.’

Theo pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Well, how bloody convenient. He’s right, I don’t share his vision and I don’t share his moral code. How dare he say those things to Anna, how dare he? And I’m furious that you put her, put us, in that position.’

‘Well, if you had stuck around and not marched out halfway through dinner, you might have learnt how his gift works.’

‘Christ alive, his gift? Really?’ He took a breath. ‘You are free of course to do as you see fit, whatever is right for you – fill your boots!’ He let his arms fall to his sides. ‘But telling a complete stranger personal things about my life, about our life, aspects I would not want shared—’

‘He’s not a complete stranger to me!’ she shouted.

‘Well, that much was obvious.’ Theo folded his arms across his chest.

‘Have you been speaking to your father?’ She shot him an anguished look.

Theo laughed. ‘Since when did I speak about anything with Dad? Ever? And while we are on the subject, he was horrid last night, just casually trashing our adoption plans – can he not see that it’s important to us? I know it’s too much to hope that it might be important to him. It’s the same with my bloody plans for Bristol!’

‘Oh, please, not that again!’ Stella took a deep breath and pushed her thumbs into her brow, as if trying to relieve the pressure.

‘Yes, that again. And for the record, Mum, you can’t just come in here and wake us up with a row and then get mad when it doesn’t go your way. You and Dad have always seemed to think that it’s okay to put me on display when it’s called for, but it’s been on your terms and this is just another example of that. What you did last night with your crazy new friend and his parlour tricks was bloody disgraceful!’

‘Don’t swear,’ she snapped. ‘I haven’t forgotten the way you cursed at me on the phone the other week – is it your new thing?’

‘“Bloody” is not swearing. Shit, arse, bollocks and fuck, now that’s swearing.’ He regretted the outburst the moment it had left his mouth.

She looked at him with her mouth agape.

‘Your tea, darling.’ Anna handed him a mug and rested her hand briefly on his shoulder, a reminder to calm down.

He took it sheepishly and sipped, letting his pulse settle. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.

The slight nod of Stella’s head indicated an acceptance of sorts.

‘But here’s the thing, Mum. You have drunk, sworn, smoked and God knows what else for my whole life and then after one hour in the company of Pastor Putney, you expect me to just go along with the whole Julie Andrews charade? And worse still, he’s fooling you – I don’t think he’s what you’re looking for. I really don’t. And I think he might be dangerous. Do you think you’re being forgiven for all the bad stuff you’ve ever done and said? Is this a way of wiping the slate clean? Because I get that you might want to, but I’m not sure this is the right way.’

His mother shook her head. ‘No, it’s not that at all. I know that I’m not without faults, without sin, but it’s more than that – I like the stillness, the quiet of the church, and the ceremony. It makes me feel better.’

Theo remembered how he used to lie in the dark at school with such longing in his gut, so desperate to return home that it physically hurt, and how it was made far worse because no one at home gave a shit.

‘Watching you close your eyes in prayer as though it was the most natural thing in the world, even though you’ve never been a churchgoer, seemed a bit bonkers,’ he said. ‘And as for communicating with the dead...’

‘It’s not bonkers.’ His mother stood her ground. ‘And believe me when I say I wish I could go back and do a lot of things differently. In a sense, now I can – it’s like being born again.’ A smile flickered around her mouth.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, what next? A baptism?’

And then to his horror and acute embarrassment, his mother started to cry, properly cry, with a heave to her chest and a shake to her shoulders. Her mouth twisted and her eyes flamed.

‘Stella, come and sit down.’ Anna shepherded her to the kitchen table and helped her settle. ‘I’m going to go and have my bath.’ She winked at her husband, purposefully leaving them alone.

Theo sat opposite his mother and waited until her great gulping sobs had abated.

‘I like feeling this way.’ She sniffed. ‘I like listening to Pastor Jules and what he thinks about life and I like the way he listens to me.’ She pointed at her chest. ‘I am a person too, and what I say and what I want has never been considered. Never.’

Welcome to my world... Theo buried the thought.

‘I have never been heard!’ Stella shook her head.

He felt the stirring of sympathy and tried to imagine living each day in the shadow of his father. He replayed some of the million ways his father deliberately made him feel worthless. He adopted a softer tone. ‘I get it, Mum, I do, and if going to church is something you want to do and you get something out of it, then it can only be a good thing, but do you have to go to that church?’

‘You know nothing about it!’ she replied. ‘You have made up your mind based on what – ten minutes in Pastor Jules’s company? Why do you think that’s okay?’

He swallowed the words that rattled in his mouth, took the path of least resistance and conceded. ‘You’re right, Mum, I probably could have been more civil. What I think about Pastor Jules and his shed in Putney stands, but for embarrassing you, I am sorry.’

His mother sat still, letting his apology percolate. She straightened her back. ‘Daddy is being so horrible to me about the whole thing – he finds it all most amusing. He doesn’t understand that I need the calming space to keep sane.’ She curled her fingernails into her palm as she spoke. ‘I need the quiet contemplation of prayer to get my head straight.’

‘Possibly the most important lesson of all is that when you’re still and quiet, that’s when your thoughts get ordered, when your mind sorts out all its problems and when you’re able to see most clearly. Don’t ever underestimate the value of stillness.’ Mr Porter’s words came into Theo’s head; he heard his distinctive accent and felt a smile forming at the vivid recollection of that conversation.

‘I do understand, Mum.’ He spoke softly. ‘But I wouldn’t be doing my job, would I, if I wasn’t looking out for you, making sure you were safe and that there wasn’t something I should be doing to make you happier.’

Stella reached across the table and placed her hand over the back of his. ‘You have always been a good boy.’ She gave a long, slow blink that looked a little like a prayer and smiled at him.

Theo suspected that she, like him, was picturing that night in the upstairs corridor of La Grande Belle when he had summoned all of his courage and had tried to act as her protector.

* * *

Anna fidgeted in the plastic seat, adjusting the cuffs of the blouse she had deliberated over for almost an hour. ‘I want to look smart but motherly, trustworthy but fun – which do you think, Theo, the pale blue or the white?’ She had held the hangers out alternately.

He had stared at her, trying desperately to get in the swing of it but knowing the biggest barrier to their adoption plans would probably not be which shade of blouse she chose but something far more fundamental. Please let me get it right, he urged himself, over and over. We need this.

They’d already had a massive row about where his priorities lay. The Monday morning after the Pastor Julian dinner, Theo had gone into work with his dad’s snide aside running on a loop through his head: ‘If Theo feels that strongly about those poor kids, he should fund the sodding project himself.’ He was damned if he was going to let his father reduce him to tears over something he cared so much about, just like he’d done to his mum and her new interest in all things religious. Before he had a chance to think better of it, Theo had called the Bristol agent and bought the warehouse – funded the sodding project himself, lock, stock and barrel. Anna had been furious when he told her: she worried that his attention was no longer one hundred per cent on their adoption plans (probably true) and that tying all their money up in this gamble of a project endangered their future security (also probably true). It hadn’t exactly made for the most peaceful run-up to the adoption meeting. And to make things worse, Anna’s pregnant friend Shania had just asked Anna to be her birthing partner in a few months’ time. Theo was pretty sure that the experience of seeing her friend give birth would not be helpful and he was dreading the upset that would surely follow. Why did things have to be so damn complicated?

But here they were nonetheless, sitting on a couple of narrow seats along a plain wall in a waiting room that was probably no different from the waiting rooms of countless other municipal buildings. He could feel waves of excited energy coming off Anna. ‘Don’t be nervous,’ he whispered. ‘All it will take is five minutes in your company and it’ll be blindingly obvious to anyone that any child’s life would be infinitely better with you in it.’

He saw relief spread slowly across her face. ‘Thank you for saying that, Theo. With you by my side, I think I can do anything!’

‘Exactly.’ He smiled at her.

‘Mr and Mrs Montgomery?’

Anna shot up and grabbed his hand, marching him into the office. The woman used her foot to hold the door ajar as she beckoned them in. Theo took in her stocky build, the muted tones of her mustard and green skirt and the blunt cut of her grey hair. A neat, square woman in her mid sixties, she wore stout lace-up shoes and looked more like a dog walker than an adoption official, not that he’d tried to paint a picture of her beforehand, but if he had, this wouldn’t have been it.

‘Come in.’ She gestured with her open hand towards the bland, sparsely furnished room. Bar a table in the centre, six leggy, school-type chairs and a set of royal blue vertical blinds, there was little else. No distractions.

‘It’s good to meet you, Mr Montgomery. I am Mrs Wentworth.’

‘Theo, please.’ He felt a small flicker of embarrassment that she didn’t extend the same courtesy, then smiled as he caught her eye, desperate for her to like him, to approve.

‘And Mrs Montgomery.’ She shook Anna’s hand.

‘Anna, please.’

‘Please, do sit down.’

He watched Anna deliberate over where to sit, as if this too might be part of a test. He wished she would relax. He was, as ever, immaculate. It was important to him, this first impression. He hitched up his suit trousers, twisted his signet ring, straightened the Windsor knot of his pale blue tie and adjusted the lapels of his jacket, running his thumb along the silk underside and taking courage from the feel of his fishing fly. Then he coughed to clear his throat.

‘So, all we’re going to do today is have a chat. I can tell you about the process that you’re considering embarking upon and it’s a chance for you to ask any questions you might have before you make that decision. How does that sound?’

‘It sounds wonderful!’ Anna fired back, sounding to him like the try-hard girl in school, keen to get the answer right, desperate to be picked. It tore at his heart, because he knew she was perfect. Perfect for him and perfect for any child that might need a home. But then again, maybe she was right to be this way; maybe it was the little things that would make the difference. He thought about getting stuck in the lift with her that day, three years ago, a little thing on a seemingly insignificant day. A day, no, a minute that had changed his entire life. And hers.

Conscious of Mrs Wentworth’s scrutiny from the seat opposite his, he became hyper aware of his every facial tic. He found himself trying to suppress the flurry of thoughts that swirled in his mind, as if her incisive gaze could penetrate deep inside his brain. What if she could see his doubts, what if she could tell he had a big secret in there, had deceived Anna for all these years? What if she somehow intuited that he already had a child and therefore shouldn’t be allowed to take on someone else’s?

He inhaled and shook himself out of this stupidity – it seemed his mother wasn’t the only gullible one in the family. Mrs Wentworth was some sort of social worker, not a psychic!

Mrs Wentworth smiled and rested an elbow on the arm of her chair. ‘I can tell that you’re a little nervous, and that’s perfectly understandable, but there is really no need.’

‘I guess that’s because it’s so important to me.’ Anna jumped in again with the textbook answer.

‘And that I understand, but this really is just a chat.’

‘Okay.’ Anna exhaled. ‘I will try.’

‘And what about you, Mr Montgomery? How are you feeling about this?’

He didn’t like the slant to her head, as if she really had seen something in him that might be a tick in the wrong box. He held her gaze. ‘Er... I’m a bit nervous too, I guess. It’s more the fear of the unknown for me, I think.’

‘Would you like to expand on that a little?’

‘Er... I don’t know.’ He paused, feeling like an idiot. He decided to change tack. ‘I just wish Anna would show you her true self, because she’s—’

‘I am being my true self!’ Anna shot back, cutting him short.

‘I didn’t mean it in a negative way, I was only thinking that you are perfect and you don’t need to perform.’

Mrs Wentworth raised her pen. ‘What do you mean by “perform”, exactly?’ This had clearly caught her interest.

And, awkward though it was, that exchange turned out to be the least uncomfortable of the day...

They drove home in a fug of hostility distilled from all the words left unsaid and bubbling under the surface, waiting for release.

‘How do you think—’

‘Don’t talk to me, Theo.’ Anna raised her palm. ‘Don’t say anything!’

He took her advice and kept quiet.

It was she who broke the silence, a few minutes later. ‘Did you deliberately try and sabotage the whole interview? Was that your game plan?’ She shook her head, muttering something acidic but inaudible.

‘Of course not! I got flustered, I—’

‘What was all that about me performing? It made me sound like a fake!’ she yelled.

‘I was only trying to say that the real you, the everyday Anna, is more than good enough to adopt a child and that you didn’t need to be so on edge!’

‘The everyday Anna? And who is that exactly? I was being myself! Not that Mrs Wentworth would believe that, not now! Jesus, Theo!’

‘I just—’

‘No, don’t say anything!’ She turned and pointedly stared out of the window, staying like that for another good few minutes.

‘Then she asked you a basic question, Theo! Basic! “Why do you think you would make a good parent?” And you... you just... Urrrrgh!’ She shook her head and looked furious.

Theo’s mouth went dry at the recollection.

‘Why do you think you would make a good parent, Mr Montgomery?’

Twisting in his seat, he’d seen the image of Sophie smiling at him on the bus and then Kitty’s face, horror-struck at the prospect of any interaction, and his confidence had evaporated. Why do I think I would make a good parent? I don’t, not really! I’m not sure I could be. I am weird, toxic, useless. He then heard his father’s voice, loud and clear: ‘The idea of him looking after a baby!’

And then he’d given his stupid answer, mumbled from cracked lips. ‘I don’t...’

‘You don’t think you would make a good parent?’ Mrs Wentworth had prompted.

He’d sensed Anna sitting ramrod straight in the seat next to him, her words a decibel higher than her normal speech, her tone urgent. ‘He’ll... He’ll be great. He’s just nervous! He’s kind and he listens and he has a good, good heart...’

Her rapid and heartfelt defence only made him feel worse. He shook his head. ‘No, I was going to say, I don’t know exactly, but I will try very hard.’

Glancing across the car now, he noted his wife’s set expression, the tension in her jaw. Her hand was clamped over her mouth as if to prevent her from saying the wrong thing, the hurtful thing.

I want so badly to be the man you want me to be, Anna. I want us to adopt, but I don’t know how to jump through hoops and be the smiley, untroubled father you have in mind. I don’t know how! And that’s the truth.