‘She sent me twenty-one texts the day I flew over here. Not to ask how I’m doing or to check I’m okay. She wanted to make sure I was going to keep it quiet. What was it she said? “There’s no need to cause a fuss.” A fuss? I found out that my dad’s not my dad and she acts like I found a hair in my soup?’ Jenna can hear her voice rising but she can’t stop it. All the pain, hurt, and shock that she dialled down as she sat across the kitchen table from her mum, because her dad was asleep on the sofa in the living room, is exploding out of her. ‘What Mum meant was: Don’t tell anyone. She cared – cares – more about the family’s reputation than she does about me.’

‘Did she tell you what happened?’ Tom asks. ‘Was it an affair or—’

‘Swinging.’ She watches his face carefully, for any hint of amusement or surprise but his expression doesn’t change. ‘Of course she didn’t use that word. She said that before Dad became an officer they’d go to parties with other army couples and they’d have a meal, a couple of drinks and swap partners. It was normal, she told me. Army life could be boring, especially abroad and it was a way of’ – she makes quotation marks in the air – ‘spicing things up. When I asked her if she’d been forced into it she laughed and said of course she hadn’t. It had been Daddy’s idea but she’d gone along with it because she loved him and she wanted to make him happy.’ She pauses to swipe at her eyes. ‘She just … she sat there and she told me that like it was the most normal thing in the world. She didn’t apologise. She didn’t ask me if I was okay. She didn’t hug me. She was … she was defensive. She acted like I was attacking her.’

‘I’m sorry, Jenna.’ Tom pushes the tissues towards her. ‘I’m genuinely sorry that happened to you.’

‘The worst thing’ – Jenna takes a tissue and blows her nose noisily – ‘or one of the worst things, is that Dad doesn’t know.’

‘That you’re not biologically related?’

‘Yeah, well … I don’t know that for sure, but Mum made me swear not to bring it up with him. She said he had enough to deal with. She emotionally blackmailed me and now I’m complicit too.’

‘Oh, Jenna.’