Later I found Sasha watching Netflix from under a duvet, with a McDonald’s milkshake next to her. She looked exhausted, and I felt bad for being out after school every single day. Sasha never questioned it because she thought I was studying.

‘Hey.’ I climbed under the duvet with her, and she took my hand and placed it on the baby.

‘You OK?’ she said.

‘Yep.’

‘How’s revision?’

I sighed. ‘Boring.’ Boring and sketchy. ‘You know what it’s like. I’ll just have to hope I’m doing enough.’

‘You are. I have faith.’ She sighed. ‘Do you think we should move house? I’ve been wondering.’

I looked at the telly. Sure enough, she was watching Selling Sunset. People were looking round a huge mansion with a pool, in the Hollywood Hills.

‘We can’t move to that house,’ I said.

‘Yeah. But you know. A house. Smaller. One that’s not Dad’s.’

‘We can’t,’ I said. This was Mum’s home, and since I’d been seeing Joe I wondered whether she could still be here, walking round us every day, watching us, checking on us. She might be. She might be waiting for the baby, like Lara on the train.

‘Yeah,’ said Sasha. ‘It’s still Mum’s house.’

I nodded. We were silent for what felt like a long time.

‘I’m babysitting tomorrow,’ I said, remembering. ‘After school, up to six.’

‘Ariel,’ Sasha said, leaning back and frowning. ‘That’s when you study. Can’t you just do evenings? If you have to do it at all.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Sorry. But it’s only two hours. How about this: I won’t take any more daytime ones.’

‘OK. Do tomorrow, then stop. We just need to get through this summer. You pass your exams –’

‘And you have a baby.’

She stroked her bump and I noticed again how tired she looked. I wondered, all of a sudden, where her friends were. Sasha had always had a crowd of people around her. Now she was always on her own, at work at the cafe, or collapsed at home.

I knew where they were really: they were at university, almost all of them, and the ones who weren’t had still moved away to do apprenticeships and things. Sasha was the only one of her noisy, laughing gang who was still around.

‘You look exhausted,’ I said. ‘Let me run you a bath. And while you’re in it I’ll cook a chilli, and nip out for chocolate.’

Sasha nodded. ‘Now you mention it,’ she said, ‘those would be the best things in the world.’

28

I knock on the door of number twelve. Anna Brown answers with baby Sasha on her hip and looks at me with the same polite expression as she did the first time.

Today, though, I have a different script. Today’s lines have been written by the child who hasn’t been born yet.