‘Wait,’ says Becky, holding him back, taking his hand and guiding him past great topiary animals, to where black and white flagstones make a hedge-rimmed chessboard. Maisie and the boy from the pool are sitting on it, cross-legged, facing each other. In the starlit darkness, the end of a joint flares as he inhales then passes it to her. Becky watches her little girl take it and smoke it with assurance. She has done this before. Obviously she has. There are no coughing fits. Maisie licks a finger and damps down the side of the Rizla paper where it is burning too fast.

‘We were doing exactly the same at her age,’ Adam whispers. ‘Come on, shall we go get her?’

She hesitates.

‘No,’ she says, gripping his hand. ‘Let’s leave them. I have to trust her.’

And I don’t have to be governed by my past.

When Adam lets go of her hand and puts his arm around her, kissing the top of her head, she knows she can do it. She believes with every breath, in every cell, that it is time to trust herself again.

When Maisie returns to the room, Becky is tucked up under the covers and watching a film on TV, eating from the bag of popcorn Adam dropped on the floor earlier. She had kissed Adam goodbye at his door an hour ago and it had felt exhilaratingly teenage and special, the idea that she would see him again soon, as if there was only History and double Geography to get through.

Maisie drops her handbag on the floor and sets off toward the bathroom.

Becky switches off the TV and kicks her duvet away. ‘Mais, wait. I’m sorry.’

Maisie turns around and fixes her mum with a bloodshot gaze. Her face is crumpled and smudged and Becky thinks she can see blades of grass in her hair. An image of her daughter and aftershave boy tumbling on the lawn spreads quickly in Becky’s mind like ink dropped on blotting paper. But she bids it leave. A blank page. She must trust that her daughter dealt with whatever happened in the best way she knew how.

‘You look very stoned,’ says Becky, smiling.

Maisie still doesn’t say anything and Becky wonders whether she is almost too stoned to speak. ‘I’m truly sorry for earlier.’ She tries again. ‘I messed up. Just because I’m scared, doesn’t mean you should be, in fact I want the opposite for you. I want to make sure you’ve got everything you need for the world of adults, I …’

‘Do you think you might be finding it a bit hard to let go?’ Maisie asks gently.

‘Yes,’ Becky blinks back her tears. ‘You may have been an adult for all of eleven minutes but in my eyes you’re still my baby.’

Maisie walks toward her mum. ‘I grew out of bootees, like, years ago.’