People were meant to shut it, but it had been left wide open. Probably by Mark, who had just spoken to us both with something close to hatred, and hadn’t been able to get away fast enough.

And suddenly it wasn’t Daisy I wasn’t angry with any more. It was him. Him and his mother, and their coldness and judgement and contempt. I was so angry it was like being lit up with a kind of power I hadn’t known I had. A power that was stronger than humiliation, stronger than fear, stronger than the desire to fit in and win approval: that drew its strength from other people’s indifference or hostility, and had absolutely no idea when to stop.

Seventeen

Ellie

One of the most dangerous things about being a kid is that grown-ups tend not to listen to you unless it suits them. Also, they’re usually so set on their way of doing things that there isn’t a whole lot of point in even trying to suggest that there might be trouble ahead. And so you end up tagging along with them, and then you feel bad twice over: not only because whatever ideas they had about the future they were heading towards have turned out to be mistaken, but because you didn’t manage to warn them. And maybe you didn’t even try.

I wasn’t at all keen on going to meet Mark’s mother. When I tried to imagine it, all I could make out was a kind of darkness all around her. But a visit had been planned, and it was obvious that Mum wanted me to go and to make a good impression, and I couldn’t bring myself to disappoint her. She was so full of hope, so keen on the new life she could see ahead of her, and she wanted us to put our best feet forward – she wanted us to reflect well on her: the two girls she’d raised more or less single-handedly, the brainy beauty and the daydreamer who always had her nose in a book.

Besides, Mark’s mother, Ingrid, was Ava’s grandmother. It stood to reason that Mum would want them to meet. I’d only ever known the one grandma, Mum’s mum, the one Ava and I shared. OK, so I had the privilege of still being able to sense her, sometimes – that benign golden presence, so kindly, so safe – but there was something to be said for a grandmother who was actually in the land of the living.

But Mum also seemed a bit apprehensive about meeting Ingrid. She hadn’t actually said so outright, but given what Mark was like, with his well-paid job and fancy car and ability to be generous, my guess was that Ingrid was well-off, and Mum was worried that she’d look down on us.

Maybe she was afraid that Ingrid would think she was some kind of gold-digger, offering up babies in exchange for bouquets of red roses and fine dining and four-star hotels. Not to mention the in-your-face engagement ring Mark had given her. When Ava had seen it, her first words had been, ‘You’d better watch it, you could take your eye out with that.’ And now I thought about that whenever I saw the diamond catch the light.