Harry sat up. ‘Hey, Aaron!’ Then, more quietly, ‘We’re hungover and we’ll be home soon,’ as if both were equally dreadful.

Clancy restarted the car and indicated her intention to join the traffic.

Aaron’s disembodied voice continued to float around the car’s interior. ‘I saw your parents last night, Harry. They’re obviously worried about you and mystified about why you didn’t let anyone know you were going to London.’

A car coming up behind flashed its lights and, waving her thanks, Clancy was able to pull away and resume their journey.

Harry vented a long sigh. ‘Suppose they have a point.’ He went on to sum up everything he and Rory had told Clancy that morning, adding, ‘This Darren said that it was up to me how honest I was with my parents. When he came out to his family there was a massive row and he walked out, but then his boyfriend had the opposite experience and his parents were great and still are. Rory’s mum will probably be OK. It’s just Dad. Darren said I might have to be pragmatic.’

Aaron didn’t try to dismiss Harry’s concerns. ‘In what way?’

A silence. Then Harry said gruffly, ‘Not come out to them. Just go to Leicester and live there as I want to. As we want to.’

Aaron’s turn to sigh. ‘I can see why you’d make that decision.’

Harry sounded suddenly tearful. ‘I don’t know how they’re going to be when I get home, even without … telling them.’

The worry in his voice made Clancy’s heart ache for him as she drove. The threshold between childhood and adulthood could be a tricky place. She wanted to say, ‘But Harry and Rory aren’t doing anything wrong! Why should he be frightened to tell Jordy?’ But it was an idealistic view. If Jordy disliked everyone who wasn’t ‘straight’ then that was what had to be dealt with. Whether his prejudice sprang from ignorance or fear or upbringing, it was there.

Aaron answered Harry. ‘He’ll be glad to see you but cover it up with bluster, I expect. I could go along with you if you think it would help,’ he added.

Harry was suddenly resolute. ‘No, thanks. I’m eighteen. If I want to go to London for a few days then I will.’

Aaron didn’t comment, though Clancy wondered whether, like her, he was thinking, ‘So why didn’t you tell them you were going?’ Instead, Aaron said his goodbyes and Harry and Rory fell quiet as Clancy drove past King’s Lynn, Hunstanton and Holme. Then she took the left towards Nelson’s Bar, passing through the pinewood, the car’s engine note changing as they hit Long Climb. The atmosphere became taut, and not just on the part of the boys. Clancy was unsettled too; hearing Aaron’s voice without, once again, really being able to have a conversation with him herself, was like an itch she couldn’t reach to scratch.

That day at Keelmarsh House, she’d been totally lit up by Aaron’s kisses, but when Aaron had pulled back with a vengeance at her being so palpably knocked off balance by Will’s text, it had been like a shower of icy water.