My godson James was the son of my ex-boyfriend. He hardly saw me in his childhood, but now a young adult he was keen to befriend me to learn more about the early life of his father.

This posed difficulties. Unless I asked him outright, I did not know whether he already knew about his abusive grandfather. I suspected that James may have actually suffered at the hand of his own father, so perhaps this news would not be so great a shock?

A more pressing question was whether or not I should confess to this earnest young man that I was still in a relationship with his father. What would be his reaction when he learnt that the beautiful dark-haired woman in the green silk dress was our surrogate, carrying his baby half-sister?