“He rolled over on top of me and we moved together again and again and it felt so good I didn’t ever want to stop—until I came.”

Hannah grins, and begins to understand that the force she saw running beneath Cate’s mild exterior, although she does not have the words for it yet, is subversion. She is a girl with a rebel heart.

Cate’s house is an Edwardian semi-detached in Didsbury, on the other side of the Parrs Wood Road, with four big bedrooms and a garden. She has a mum and dad and an older sister, Vicky, who is seventeen and stalks the landing like a wrathful deity.

Cate’s mum is a nurse, pretty and round. She has long red hair which falls around her face and freckles scattered over her nose. She laughs a lot. She makes her own bread. Hannah has never eaten homemade bread before. Cate’s dad is tall and has a beard, and when he is around he plays music in the living room; he has a collection of old vinyl and plays Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and Cat Stevens. Sometimes, after tea, they put on music and dance in the kitchen. Cate’s mum is a really good dancer. So is her dad. Sometimes they dance close to each other, sometimes they laugh and kiss. Hannah has never seen parents touch each other before. Cate’s sister, if she ever witnesses this display, rolls her eyes. “For fuck’s sake,” she says. “Leave it out.”

Compared to her own parents, Cate’s mum and dad seem young.

Cate’s family vote Labor. Hannah’s vote Conservative.

Cate’s family have Zola and Updike. Hannah’s have Reader’s Digest and the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Cate’s dad does something with engineering. Hannah’s dad works at Christie Hospital as a security guard.

Cate’s family has olive oil. Hannah’s has salad dressing.

When they are thirteen, Cate’s mum becomes ill. She loses weight and loses her hair and experiments with scarves. Sometimes she comes to pick up Cate at the school gate, but Cate wishes she wouldn’t. She wishes she could walk straight past the strange thin woman with the headscarf and the earrings and the lipstick, who is trying too hard, whose teeth are too big in her face.

After a while though, her mother gets better. Her hair grows back, though a little differently, a little more thinly than before. Cate’s dad still plays music, but they don’t dance in the kitchen anymore.