‘Every day one of my parents asks me who the father is. My dad wants to know who’ll pay for it. My mum just— I don’t know, I think she just needs to know. And I just say, I’m not telling you.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want them to look at me like, like that … like someone who was stupid enough …’

Adam’s face stretches with effort and pain, his eyes fill with tears. ‘But Becky, none of this is your fault.’

‘I went to the party. I got drunk. I didn’t say anything. I did a million things that were my fault. And now look at me.’

‘It’s not like they’re going to throw you out. Are they?’

‘My dad … My dad thinks I just fucked anyone. He doesn’t say it but I know he thinks it. He thinks I don’t even know the father’s name, and that’s why I can’t say it. Because I’m that kind of a person. He looks at me like, like I’m a slut.’

‘That’s his problem.’

‘I have to live there.’

‘Not for long.’

‘I can’t do it. I’m sorry. I just can’t.’

He throws the last of the glass into the bin and returns to her. Facing her, he begins to push her on the swing. There is a wobble in his voice when he asks her, ‘What do you mean when you say you can’t do it?’

She turns to face him: her eyes clear, tearless, determined now. ‘I mean that I don’t want to be here any more. And I don’t even want to talk about it with you because I don’t want you to end up feeling bad, like you should have done something to change it, or like you can do something to change it. You can’t. Nobody can.’

‘You’re talking like you’re going somewhere …’

‘It’s my fault. I took drugs with him. I should have known.’

‘Becky, look at me.’

‘I don’t want to.’ She pushes her feet off the asphalt and swings, her eyes closed now.

‘Please hang on a bit longer. Just while we work it out.’

‘It’s OK.’ She cuts him off. ‘I will.’ But in her flat and firm words, delivered to silence him, he understands that calculation replaces honesty. She has put him on the other side of an invisible wall. Her decisions are being made behind closed eyes.

He is afraid of her unhappiness now, at how deep and impregnable it is. He can’t shift it.

‘Let me take you home,’ he says finally.