There were no pavements – I guessed that was so the developers could fit in as many properties as possible. Each house had a pocket handkerchief of immaculate lawn in front of it; Mark’s was adorned with a weedy sapling in a central bed. It was fantastically impersonal. Talk about a clean slate – this was perfect: it was just the place for a family that had plenty of reasons not to look back.

Inside, the house was a bit tight in terms of proportions but nice – very clean, freshly painted, with new-smelling carpets. It would get cramped pretty fast once we were all living there and the baby had arrived, but Mum and Mark were already talking about remodelling the place and building an extension. As long as I finally had a room of my own and could close the door on them all, it would be all right.

The room I wanted was the second biggest, after the master bedroom, and was at the back of the house, overlooking the tiny garden. I could imagine myself in there, with my stuff… not that I had much of it: GCSE textbooks, clothes, a bit of make-up, and that was about it. Not like Ellie, who kept everything – old friendship bracelets, books, toys, and whatever random junk was left over from playground crazes of several summers ago.

What a relief it would be, not to have her clutter all around. Just me and my space and plenty of it. I’d be able to sit round messaging Jake without worrying that Ellie was going to forget the knock-and-wait rule and suddenly burst in on me.

Maybe I’d even be able to get Jake in here, one day. It wouldn’t really feel like doing it at home – more like being in a hotel, with a bit of added risk.

I went out and knocked on the door of the little room that was going to be Ellie’s. There was no answer, so I went in. She was standing with her back to the door, looking out of the window onto the small square of garden and the other houses of the estate.

‘You didn’t wait for me to invite you in,’ she said. ‘If I did that to you, you’d have a fit.’

‘Well, I’m here now,’ I said, and came to stand next to her by the window. ‘What do you make of it?’

‘Do you mean the room, or the house, or the place? Or the whole thing?’

‘Any of it. All of it.’

Ellie paused. There was a weird, tight energy around her, the kind of energy people give off before they start a fight.

‘I think it’s doomed,’ she said.

I started laughing before I realised she wasn’t joking. She said, ‘Laugh all you like. If you weren’t so wrapped up in yourself, maybe you’d feel it too. And your father is not a good man, whatever Mum wants to believe. He told us something that wasn’t true and we believed him. That means we shouldn’t trust him. And he didn’t love that little girl. You could tell. I don’t think he wanted her at all.’