Lenny is not listening: he’s singing another of Luke’s stupid songs – ‘We’re picking our nose, picking our nose, picking our nose by the fire.’ It’s irritating and Lizzie wants to tell him to stop. Greg taught Lenny ridiculous football songs – ‘Tottenham are the greatest team the world has ever seen,’ they’d crow, back in the good days.

Her back aches and her head feels thick. She wants to be in bed with a hot-water bottle and her books, Lenny under one arm reading a comic. Not here, with Luke looking at her with pity because she can’t afford football boots for her son. Once, she was one of the best-paid teachers in her school. Their Ofsted scores were the highest in the area, largely thanks to her. It was still a modest salary at best, but she’d earned it. She used to get job offers from schools up and down the country. Private schools that could pay her triple, not that she’d ever consider it. At heart, Lizzie was a fierce socialist. She used to be part of a union. She used to have a voice. Now she scrabbles for lint-covered coins in the bottom of her pockets.

She forces herself to breathe slowly, paints on a smile and says, ‘Come on, Lenny, we’d better get going.’

‘Oh. I was hoping you might want to come back to mine and meet Wolfie,’ Luke says, when he emerges from the towel. His hair is sticking up all over the place. She knew it was coming. Of course she did. Men don’t just play football with other men’s kids. They always want something in return. The blanket, the teabags. The posh biscuits. She sees Greg in her head and feels sick.

Lizzie says, ‘No,’ at the same time as Lenny says, ‘Yes, please!’ and the look he gives her says he knows he’ll be in trouble when they get home, but it will be worth it. The football and the Mars bar and going to Mr Williams’s house to watch the greatest goals of all time on his no doubt giant flat-screen TV. He squeezes his mum’s hand as they walk towards Luke’s car, hoping it will take the tightness out of her smile.

Lizzie knows she needs to stop this, whatever it is, now, but her feet follow Luke’s, as if she’s trailing prints left in the snow. She never did learn the offside rule, but this must be it.