Reading their confessions, Izzie didn’t feel completely exonerated – it wasn’t like anyone else’s exaggerated claims had caused their mum’s actual relationship to crash and burn in such an embarrassingly public way, but all the same, she felt slightly less of a boring freak. They understood why she had gone so overboard.

You’re not going to believe this, I know, but I did actually meet a really nice boy yesterday, she posted mournfully, adding some of the photos she’d taken of the two of them on Swanpool beach. We hung out and kissed (true!) and were meant to be meeting up last night, but I had to bail on him because I’m grounded. Will probably never see him again now. TYPICAL!!!!!

So typical you could almost laugh. Or give up. No, she still hadn’t heard anything back from Fraser, despite checking her messages every five seconds or so. Karma, she thought glumly each time she refreshed her in-box to find nothing new there. No reply had come from George, either, following the message she had eventually sent him earlier: a digitally tweaked picture of The Lute Player, now with a rock-star headband and skull patterns on her peasanty white shirt, plus a speech bubble coming from her mouth, which read, I’M SORRY.

Dear George, this is my fault, not Mum’s, she had written. She can’t tell you the details of what happened because she knows it will embarrass me, but basically she really, really likes you and is sorry that you got dragged into my stupid mess. And me and Jack like you too, so please give her another chance. Sorry again, love Izzie.

She’d even – and this was a measure of just how sorry she was – added a PS about Seren.

PS: I meant to say, Seren can have all my old Sylvanian Families if she wants them, there’s a massive boxful in the loft.

But, like Fraser, George had gone quiet on her too. Perhaps she’d blown it with both of them. Being rational and philosophical about it, she could see there was a certain balance at work there, in terms of justice: she had lost Mum George, therefore she had to sacrifice Fraser and lose him too. When she wasn’t being rational and philosophical, though, it just felt bloody rubbish.

In the room next door, Em was still in bed, drearily wondering if she had the energy to get up and make lunch for everyone, or whether the kids would have to forage for their own food today. The latter, she decided. Meanwhile she had never felt less like eating. It seemed just another worthless pursuit, like falling in love or trying to be a good person. What was the point?