I thought about that and it was strange, but I felt like crying. I felt like crying because it was so obviously true. My brother never really had an opportunity to be himself and I’d just been a limiting factor on his development, stunting his growth.

‘I kinda liked you protecting me,’ I said. ‘I felt safe.’ My voice didn’t break and I was grateful.

‘I will still protect you, Ash,’ he replied. He reached over and took my hand. ‘That hasn’t changed and it never will. But I’m beginning to think there are other ways to protect people. Maybe even that protecting people isn’t the best form of protection. Do you know what I mean?’

I laughed.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Because that doesn’t make sense.’

But Aiden didn’t laugh.

‘We’re like one of those fairy stories Mum used to read to us at bedtime, Ashleigh. A princess and her prince brother in our beautiful tower. Wonderful, glorious. Heroes. But we know nothing about the world out there, the farmers, the blacksmiths, the soldiers, the beggars, the drunks, the dead and the dying in their ditches, the filth and the squalor. The real world. We need to know about those things, Ash. We can’t drift through life in privileged ignorance. We should help where we can. That’s what makes us human. Or it should be.’

I thought about Charlotte and the brief glimpse I’d been given into her life and her way of thinking. Her comments about Aiden and me, the implication that because we were rich, we couldn’t understand the problems most people faced on a daily basis.

‘That’s what you talked to Xena about?’

‘She taught me more in those twenty minutes than Mr Meredith could teach in ten years at school.’

‘And what did you learn?’

‘A bit about the dead and the dying.’

I was going to ask him to be more specific, but I knew he wouldn’t open up. Maybe when he was ready, he’d tell me what he and Xena talked about specifically, but this wasn’t the time or place.

‘Do you think you’re going through puberty, Aiden?’ I asked.

He laughed and I was pleased; I’d asked the question partly to relieve the gloomy atmosphere left by his words. The dead and the dying?

‘Probably,’ he said. ‘It’s that time, isn’t it? Hormones raging through your body, the mood swings.’ He threw up his hands in mock despair. ‘Oh, my God, the hair and the pimples!’ He made his voice go all deep. ‘Not the hair and the pimples, sweet Lord.’

I laughed with him. And for a while I could almost persuade myself that things were fine.

‘You’ve changed too, you know,’ he said as the car drew up to our front gates, which slid open.

‘No, I haven’t.’

But he carried on over me.