What devastated her was that the same shadow was beginning to appear in her daughter’s eyes. At eight, Nikki was already losing her childish light-heartedness, for a terrible reason. And there was nothing her frantic mother could do about it.

The park was already filling up. Children were kicking balls about, adults were leaning back in the sun.

Laura recognised some of the other mothers and waved to them. They waved back, but then turned away quickly. She glanced quickly at Nikki to see if she had noticed the rejection, and found her daughter regarding her with an understanding smile.

‘It’s all right,’ she said in a confiding voice. ‘We’ll play together.’

At such moments Laura wanted to scream to the world, ‘How dare you reject my daughter? So what if her face is a little different? What harm does it do you?’

But Nikki was already darting away, deftly dribbling the ball between her feet. She seemed to have put the incident behind her.

If only I could do that, Laura thought. If only I could still believe the world will turn out to be a good place in the end, as she does.

She took a last glimpse at the glorious young man, still sitting motionless, bathed in the sun.

Not that Laura set much store by looks. Jack, too, had been handsome, with a broad, good-natured smile and an air of loving the world-until the day he walked out on his wife and daughter without a backward glance.

Nikki was still playing with her junior football, which she bounced hopefully, looking around her.

‘I don’t see anyone that we know, darling,’ Laura said. ‘Let’s just play together.’

‘You mean they wouldn’t want to play with me?’ Nikki asked.

Laura’s heart lurched, and her eyes reacted before she could stop herself. Nikki watched and understood.

‘It’s all right, Mummy.’ The little girl rubbed her face. ‘People don’t understand about this.’