‘Well, no, because there’s no such thing as ghosts,’ Mark said.

Ellie gave him a slightly pitying look. ‘Definitely not in the girls’ toilets at my school,’ she said.

Mark said, ‘Or anywhere.’

Mum gave him a slightly panicked look, as if to say Don’t go there. Mark frowned. He said, ‘You’re not seriously telling me you’ve seen a ghost somewhere else, are you, Ellie?’

‘You don’t see ghosts. You feel them,’ Ellie said, blushing slightly but clearly delighted to have the chance to explain. That was Ellie all over. She had no idea when to hold back. ‘Bella doesn’t really know anything about ghosts. They were all just scaring each other. You don’t need an actual ghost to do that. Most people scare pretty easily. All you need is one thing they don’t understand and they’re spooked.’

‘You sound very sure of yourself,’ Mark said. ‘How do you know Bella didn’t feel something?’

She looked at me blankly. ‘Because there was nothing there.’

‘How do you know?’

Ellie shrugged. Mum cleared her throat. ‘I don’t think now’s the time to get into all of that. Have we all decided what we’re having?’

Ellie hunched her shoulders and pulled a face. ‘I wasn’t getting into anything.’

Mark said, ‘Do you think there’s anything to feel here?’

Ellie relaxed her shoulders and looked around and sniffed the air, the way somebody might do if they’d picked up a faint smell of burning.

‘Not much,’ she admitted. ‘Right now, it just all seems a bit closed off.’

‘I think that’s reassuring,’ Mark said. ‘Do you feel ghosts too, Ava?’

‘I don’t feel anything if I can help it,’ I told him, and then the waiter arrived to take our order.

I’d wanted to warn Mark off. Don’t think you can get to know me just like that. But it didn’t work. He looked as if he felt sorry for me. As if it was a shame that I’d become someone who could say, I don’t feel anything if I can help it.

Usually the idea of anyone being sympathetic like that – especially a stranger, especially someone who was dating my mother! – would have driven me mad. But with Mark it didn’t. Even though I would have thought that was the last thing I wanted, it turned out to be another thing I liked about him.

I didn’t particularly want to like him. I didn’t feel like I needed to like him. Maybe like isn’t even quite the right word. There was something about him I recognised because it was how I secretly wanted to be myself: in control, with the money and the car and everybody’s respect. I admired him. I was very relieved, and not a little amazed, that this time round Mum had managed to fall for someone who wasn’t a total loser.

Not that Dad was a loser, exactly. He just didn’t help himself. Or us. And he was very different to Mark.

Tea arrived, and it was just as fancy as you’d expect: a three-tiered silver cake stand loaded up with mouthful-size treats, tiny eclairs and choux buns and a selection of patisserie adorned with swirls of piped cream, slivers of strawberry, chocolate curls and fondant icing in shades of pastel pink.