‘I was just angry. I’m sorry.’

Krish was silent for a moment. ‘I can’t be what she wants all the time.’

‘And what’s that?’ Anna asked him. Jake sat listening quietly, an arm round Krish’s shoulders.

Krish shook his head helplessly. ‘Sometimes I think she wants me to be my father.’ He paused as a motorbike roared past on the road. ‘Or she wants me to be a baby for her for ever or . . . I don’t know. She justs wants me to be everything . . . that she needs.’

‘But that’s not reasonable, is it?’ Anna said. ‘No mother should ask that of a child.’

‘She’s not just any mother, though, is she?’ Krish took more mouthfuls from the bottle. ‘Thing is – I’ve realized gradually that she’s not like other mothers. But I’ve always thought, well, maybe she’s not that bad. No one else thinks there’s anything odd about her. I’ve tried to kid myself she wasn’t so different from anyone else – what happens with some of the lodgers . . . That she was just broad-minded, a free spirit or something. She’s coped, after all. She’s not got a psychiatric record – she must be OK really. So that meant I’d be all right too. But she’s not all right, is she? She’s even been in one of those places . . .’

‘A long time ago,’ Anna said. ‘And for a good reason.’

Krish was barely listening to her. ‘She’ll drive me mad herself. She’ll be the one. I can’t do anything without her being part of it. I can’t go out, can’t have friends, can’t see women. If I even get near a woman it all gets fouled up because I feel as if she’s watching. I don’t even want to do this bloody degree. I don’t know what to do . . .’ He was really crying now, taking deep gulps. ‘I can’t even talk about her normally because I feel such a shit if I do . . . And I’m scared. I’m so scared of being ill – in my head. Sometimes I think I’m not right. No one should think things like I do.’

Anna also put her arm round him. ‘Krish, Krish . . .’ The three of them sat close in the darkening evening. Anna felt Jake stroke her arm with the back of his fingers, behind Krish’s back. She looked round at him and their eyes met, sadly, but with warmth in them.

‘Let’s get back,’ Jake said. Krish was sagging between them now. ‘He’s past any more conversation.’ He lifted the bottle of wine and held it up in the fading light. ‘God, he’s nearly drunk the lot.’

‘We can’t take him back there!’ Anna said.

‘He can come to mine. I’ll drop you off first.’

‘I’ll come round tomorrow – first thing.’

They had to half drag Krish into the van. He sat slumped in the middle seat, silent now and unreachable.