She doesn’t get what she’s praying for, but then prayers are complicated things, and what you want is often the one thing you shouldn’t get. She does manage to tell her father exactly what’s happened, before collapsing into tears and Fred has to take the phone off her. Daddy’s name is John, and Fred’s known the family long enough that even in this situation he gets to use the name. To be honest, at this point he could be calling him anything.

“John, you’ll have to try to stay calm.”

“No John, no, no, no John, no. John, you are not going to come up here, no John.”

“John, you’re not going to come and pick her up, tonight she’s staying here. She’s staying here, because she’s an adult, and you’re not going to come and drag her back home like some naughty little girl.”

The sight of this young man who, a few years ago had completely collapsed under similar pressure now being the commanding presence, being in control, was enough to get me welling up.

“She’s staying here John. But tomorrow morning I’m putting her on a train and you’re going to pick her up from the station. She’s put herself through a lot, and right now she needs your help.

“Yes, I know, she should probably have. But she has now, and you need to do something more than tell her where she went wrong.

“Yes John, yes, you’re right. But right at this moment your daughter needs comfort and support.

“Yes John, yes. I’ll take good care of her. She’ll see you tomorrow.”

Fred hangs up the phone, and turns around to the two girls sitting on the sofa, wrapped in blankets. His wife has just given our girl a cup of hot chocolate (the universal comforter) and she’s forlornly stirring it.

“I think you’ll be alright, your Dad loves you an awful lot.”

She looks up at him; she wants to scream “no he doesn’t! He only cares about how it’ll affect him. He never cared about me! That’s why I’m in this mess!” Instead, she grumbles, and looks down into her drink.

Fred smiles at her, “Look, I know he’s an ass, and that right now he’s probably desperately trying to figure out how to keep everyone he knows from finding out. But he’s really only trying to protect you.”

She sniffs, she doesn’t agree.

“You can’t expect him not to be upset. You can’t expect him to be trying to sort this all out. This is your mess. You’re the only one you can sort it out.”

She starts crying again, “but I can’t. I haven’t got a clue where to start.”

Fred sits on the sofa, puts a hand on her shoulder. “There isn’t anywhere to start, stuff happens all the time, and doesn’t begin and end neatly… So you need to start sorting this out right now, from this stupid sofa.” Even Fred thinks this sounds a bit trite.

She finishes the hot chocolate, and Fred makes a cup of tea for everyone. They eat cheese on toast for lunch, and talk way into the afternoon. They all watch trashy TV together, which makes them feel much better about themselves. In the end they talk way into the night, about holidays, about jobs, about mortgages, and about the future of a girl who’s only just realise that she’s not a girl anymore.

The next day she goes home, has a blazing row with her father and storms out of the house. Fred isn’t surprised she turns up on his doorstep again, but at least this time her parents phone her.

Fred is a young man whose case I’d worked on, and had managed to turn away from a particularly messy episode. He’s now married, and living in a small house in the city. It’s early on a Thursday morning, and Fred is about go to work when there’s a knock on the door. At the door is a friend of Fred’s from when he was young. She’s the little sister of one of his friends, and they’d always gotten along well. She’s a good six years younger than he is, and she’s looking appalling. Fred’s wife takes one look at her and goes back into the house to tell work that no one’s going to be turning up today.

It turns out the young girl has been having an affair with a married man, and her contraceptive has failed. She’s utterly distraught, she doesn’t want to go home, she doesn’t want to talk to her brother or her family because she’s been brought up quite strictly and is convinced that they’ll disown her on the spot. Fred knows exactly why she thought of him, as does his wife. Three years ago they’d been in a similar situation, except there was no pregnancy in their case. It had been a false alarm, but for a few days they’d been seriously panicking, as at the time they’d been heading for different marriages.

Our girl is beyond upset, and she’s seriously distraught, she hasn’t a clue what to do but Fred is very clear on what has to happen.

She has to talk to her parents.