Janette is able to go back to bed, and begins to allow herself to be annoyed with Becky again. A teenage girl out walking the streets in the early hours! This is exactly the kind of muddle-headed not-thinking that led to her getting pregnant. She has no common sense! No bloody regard for other people, when it comes down to it. Janette’s kidneys ache. She vows to call the GP first thing; for antibiotics, yes, those are needed. And to ask – is it normal, sitting up all night? Not seeing anyone? Is she actually depressed and, if so, why can’t they just give her a pill for it? Will a pill harm the baby?

Her husband is no use. There is a child growing inside his child, this bright girl who was meant to go on to do this and that, who has chosen instead to be no better than one of those blank-eyed girls with bad skin pushing their squealing brats out of their council estate blocks to collect their benefits. A nothing kind of person who’ll likely raise the same. It’s like he’s forgotten that he loves her, thinks Janette, sipping water as her husband snores beside her. How does that work? Because for all her anger – and there’s plenty of that – she couldn’t ever forget to love her own daughter. Is that why she’s still up? Isn’t that why her kidneys hurt?

It is not hard for Adam to find Becky.

She is sitting – bent over, holding her ankles, facing her feet – on the low scarlet step on the highest mustard platform of the topmost climbing frame in the local park. She snaps up, terrified, when Adam says her name from the top rung of the ladder.

She is shivering in the cold night air. He gives her his jumper and his coat and his hat.

He takes the seat next to her, his arm thrown over her shoulders to seal the warmth between the layers of clothes she now wears. It is then that he sees the half-full bottle of neat vodka at her feet.

‘That’s not ideal,’ he murmurs. ‘Given you’re keeping it.’

‘I’m not keeping it. I’m giving birth to it. Then someone else can take it.’

‘OK. But … you know what I’m saying.’

‘Too late for that.’ She glances back at the bottle with glazed eyes.

‘Maybe once is OK. I don’t know but … it’s probably OK.’

‘Don’t tell me it’s OK. Nothing is.’

He looks out at the stars. ‘Well. Nice night for it.’

‘Did Mum tell you to come out?’

‘No, I felt like a dawn trip to the swings and you happened to be here. Which is nice for me.’ He doesn’t get a smile from her. ‘Yeah, she rang me.’

‘There’s no law against going out.’

‘True. It’s probably why she called me and not the police.’