‘Obviously,’ Dan says, on a groan, as he finishes his set. They high-five, adding the finger waggle they made up when they were ten and can’t seem to drop.

‘We’re going to have to be super-disciplined. I’ll start a training schedule.’ Dan thinks of spreadsheets and formulae, all that restriction. An Ironman suddenly seems like the best idea Luke’s ever had.

Lizzie

(How can she say no?)

HAVING LEFT FAR TOO early for school pick-up, Lizzie has time to kill, so she goes into the post office to get a Mars bar for Lenny. The woman behind the till recognizes Maud and Lizzie stiffens, wondering if she’s guessed Lizzie is one of Tess’s refugees.

‘Hello, Duchess, how are you today?’ the woman says to Maud, who rolls over and wiggles her slightly wonky nipples in delight. Lizzie thinks ‘Duchess’ is an ambitious nickname.

If the woman suspects Lizzie is a ‘battered woman’, she never mentions it. Just pets Maud, asks if the Mars bar is all she wants (‘Two for one on Murray Mints’) and compliments her scarf. ‘Such a lovely colour, all autumnal. Did you knit it yourself?’

‘No.’ Lizzie knows she’s being rude – her mother has told her a million times – but she can’t help it. Small-talk with strangers always seems to choke her. She’d got better at it before. Had gone to the same cashier each week when she did her food shopping, enjoyed their chats about recycled packaging. They’d even begun to share the odd recipe.

Then there were the school mums, with a son or a daughter who didn’t fit in. Another Tamsin, another Lizzie. She’d understood those mums, pressed tea into their wringing hands, reassured them about their brilliant children. The wonderful futures that lay ahead. Lizzie’s throat burns with longing for her old life, her old self. That hard-won confidence is long gone. Now everyone is dangerous to her.

She contemplates just taking off the scarf and giving it to the woman. ‘I can’t knit. Someone else made it.’

She didn’t know who. She had taken it from the peg at the shelter. No doubt it was crafted by a woman who deserved the warmth far more than she did.

‘Well, it’s lovely. Does she sell them too?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask,’ Lizzie says, wanting to bolt.

‘Maybe you could ask her. I’d love one for my niece. She needs to cover herself up a bit more.’

‘Oh.’ Lizzie fights a wave of panic and squishes the Mars bar in her sweaty fist.

‘I’ve told her no one will want to buy the ice-cream van if she’s giving away the lollies for free, but she won’t listen.’ The woman laughs at her own joke.