“Like stupid people. People who wear tracksuits and they don’t have jobs because they’re lazy, and they can’t even talk properly. Poor people.”

I said, “What about me? Do you think I’m stupid and lazy?”

“Not you!”

“Even though my whole family was poor as dirt.”

She was getting flustered. “That’s different.”

“Exactly. You can be a rich scumbag just as easily as a poor scumbag, or you can be a decent human being either way. Money’s got nothing to do with it. It’s nice to have, but it’s not what makes you who you are.”

“Chloe says her mum says it’s superimportant to make sure people know straightaway you’ve got plenty of money. Otherwise you don’t get any respect in this world.”

“Chloe and her family,” I said, hitting the end of my patience, “are vulgar enough to make your average blinged-up skanger blush.”

“What’s vulgar?”

Holly had stopped messing with the piano and was looking up at me in pure bewilderment, eyebrows pulled together, waiting for me to illuminate everything and make perfect sense of it all. For maybe the first time in her life, I had no idea what to say to her. I had no clue how to explain the difference between working poor and scumbag poor to a kid who thought everyone had a computer, or how to explain vulgar to a kid who was growing up on Britney Spears, or how to explain to anyone at all how this situation had turned into such a terminal mess. I wanted to grab hold of Olivia and get her to show me the right way to do this, except that that wasn’t Liv’s job any more; my relationship with Holly was all my own problem now. In the end I took the miniature piano out of her hand, put it back in the dollhouse and pulled her onto my lap.

Holly said, leaning back to watch my face, “Chloe’s stupid, isn’t she?”

“My God, yes,” I said. “If there was a worldwide shortage of stupid, Chloe and her family between them could fix it in a heartbeat.”

She nodded and curled in against my chest, and I tucked her head under my chin. After a while she said, “Someday will you take me and show me where Uncle Kevin fell out of the window?”

“If you feel like you need to have a look,” I said, “then sure. I’ll show you.”

“Not today, though.”

“No,” I said. “Let’s all just get through today in one piece.” We sat there on the floor in silence, me rocking Holly back and forth and her sucking pensively on the end of a plait, until Olivia came in to tell us it was time for school.