Mum went off every now and then for dinner dates: the Jag would pull up outside the flat and off she’d go, smelling of the new perfume Mark had bought her. He bought some for me, too, but it stayed in its packaging. Ellie got some bubble bath and a pencil case, which she was delighted with and carried round as if it was treasure.

He treated Mum like she was precious and slightly incompetent: opened doors for her, helped her with her coat, all that kind of thing. Mum loved it. She was always looking at him adoringly, and he would look back at her with smug relief, as if she was the one he’d been searching for all these years and had finally found.

They weren’t all over each other all the time, which was something, but instead they were romantic, which was quite bad enough. The handholding, the pecks on the cheek – it was all vaguely nauseating. Mark in the abstract I could tolerate, even admire, though I wouldn’t have admitted that to anyone. But Mark and Mum being lovey-dovey? There was just something really unsettling about it.

He took us all to the theatre, to see Romeo and Juliet in the West End. ‘It’ll be good for your studies,’ Mum said. The tickets cost a fortune – I made sure to check out the prices, but didn’t make a big deal of thanking him. Ellie was entranced by the performance; I was begrudging, and didn’t enthuse.

‘You’re a hard woman to please,’ Mark told me afterwards, when he was driving us back to the flat. ‘That’s supposed to be one of the best productions in recent years.’

‘I just don’t like it when actors declaim their lines like they’re doing you a favour,’ I said. ‘Besides, I’m not all that keen on romance.’

‘Well, I thought it was beautiful,’ Mum said brightly.

She was wearing yet another new dress, pink with a pattern of little white blossoms. It was the kind of thing you’d expect someone to dress up in if she lived in the country and cooked on an Aga. Was that the kind of person Mark wanted her to become? I didn’t know whether he’d got her the dress; she might have chosen it herself. It was getting to the point where it was hard to tell whether her things were gifts from him or attempts to please him.

‘Ava’s just heartless,’ Ellie said.

‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ Mark said.

‘It is, actually,’ I said. ‘I’m never going to fall in love. Or get married, or have children. I’m going to live on my own my whole life.’

‘Surely you’re a little young to decide that,’ Mark said.

‘Then I’m too young to decide I want to be a wife and mother, aren’t I?’

‘You’re too young to decide anything,’ Mum said. ‘You just never know how things are going to turn out. Life is full of surprises.’

And she gave Mark a special smile, and he reached out and squeezed her hand and I felt like throwing up.