‘There’s this spare ticket for Glastonbury going round,’ she says. ‘He hasn’t offered it to me yet but Lily thinks he will.’

‘No. You’re not going.’

‘Give me three reasons.’

‘Pills and amphetamines and vodka.’

‘Mum, nobody does speed any more. It’s not 1975.’

‘Toilets, then.’

‘I think I’d survive them. Two hundred thousand people seem to manage it each year. I’ll get one of those portable travel things that women can wee into standing up, if you’re really stressing about it.’

‘You’re not old enough for a festival.’

‘How come the other parents think their kids are old enough then?’

Becky’s phone rings, flashing Sharon’s name up on the screen.

‘Hold on, I have to take this,’ she says to her daughter, clamping the phone between face and neck, wiping grimy and wet hands on a tea cloth, heart thumping with anxiety. ‘Sharon! How are you? How’s the head? Wasn’t last night fun? No, I understand … Yes, I think that’s normal but you don’t need to worry. He simply wouldn’t mention it. He finds it very difficult. It’s hard to have someone say those things … Yes, he’s got a lot of dignity.’

Becky turns away from her daughter, who is scraping the white seeds from the core of a pepper and straining to listen.

‘Amber has a bit of a track record of making false allegations,’ Becky says. ‘It’s really unfair that some people would condemn him without any proof. It’s like they used to drown witches – no evidence, just one person’s word and your life’s taken from you.’

How very unlike herself she sounds, Becky thinks, turning around as if she can feel the beam of Maisie’s gaze burn into her. She sounds too loud, too vehement. Becky wipes grime from her eyes. She is tired, stressed, she thinks. She is not herself. She must get more sleep.

Becky turns back, steps further away and comes to a standstill at the kitchen doorway, looking out into the hallway.

‘Of course I understand. I can tell you that he absolutely … no … no, he is appalled by the accusations. Absolutely appalled, of course he is. But the thing is, Amber hasn’t said anything. It’s actually some drunk, show-off friend of hers who was probably recycling a second-hand rumour about the wrong person. The bottom line for me is that I couldn’t work for a man who I believe might do anything like that.’

Becky leans against the doorframe and struggles to find something to hold onto, something more than the painted wood beneath her fingers that would not yield or break were she to thump and slam at it.