‘You don’t seem … too … affected. Like, I’m sure you are and everything, but you seem to have it together, you know? Like you’re coping with it. Like you know how to act. Last week at that party.’ She spoke now as if something had unhooked the words from inside her, and they were all flowing out like the stream of fallen rain. ‘You were laughing, and it felt, somehow, like you actually meant it. I mean, I’ve been trying to laugh like that for ages. Years. And I can’t. I can’t seem to mean it. And Carl, he doesn’t get it. I don’t think he really wants to get it. He just wants …what he wants.’ Dana hugs herself tightly at this point and shivers a little, as if unwanted imaginary hands have come to rest on her shoulders, in the small of her back. ‘But you. I can’t figure you out. It’s not like being near him. I can’t go there at the moment because… I just can’t, not at the moment. Sometimes… Sometimes, Carl doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand that I don’t want to be near him.’

‘Oh. OK.’

Dana looks directly at me. ‘Can I tell you something, Josh? For some reason I feel I can trust you. Maybe it’s because you never speak to anyone.’

I offer a weak smile.

‘It’s not just “sometimes” when Carl doesn’t get it.’ Her eyes bore into me. Through me, almost. There’s no wall in her eyes at all now. They’re dark, deep and crystal clear. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’

I nod. There’s a grown-up part of me that wants to understand what Dana’s talking about. But it’s not big enough, regardless of how it seems to her.