Helen has an encounter with Rob outside the contact centre. Tom shares his worries.

Radio Times: Tom needs to offload his concerns, and Roy has some explaining to do.

Characters: Helen, Johnny, Roy, Susan, Tom, Tracy

• It’s the day of Jack’s first visit to the Contact Centre. Tom is concerned that Helen might run into Rob; she shouldn’t but anyway she is no longer frightened of him. They decide that Tom will go too.
• There’s no such thing as a free lunch; the price of Tracy’s is to help her sister pick the best of the family pictures. First she will just pop down to The Bull.
• Over a coffee, Helen wants to know what’s been worrying her brother. He tells her about Kirsty’s pregnancy and that he is the father. They are not back together and now Kirsty doesn’t want him involved – not since he proposed marriage. What? Is he out of his mind? How could he possibly think that would work?
• In The Bull Johnny moans to Roy about Tom. Enter Tracy. Much to Roy’s discomfort, Johnny leaves them to it. Roy declares that he is not looking for anything serious. He turns down her lunch invitation, because Phoebe is cooking him lunch, and he rushes off. Tracy hasn’t got the message; she will try harder.
• While Tom deals with a flat tyre, Rob appears. Helen hears him out. He wants the divorce to go through smoothly; he won’t do anything to jeopardise his contact with Jack. He proffers a toy he had bought for Jack; he also has a birthday present for Henry. Helen takes both but she insists that nothing is changed. Goodbye, Rob.
• On the way home Tom praises his sister’s generosity, though she will not tell Henry who the present is from. Tom wonders whether he will himself be a client of a contact centre but Helen reassures him that what Kirsty said in the heat of the moment – after his ridiculous proposal – might not stick. And marriage doesn’t solve all problems.