And as for congratulations… who did they think they were trying to kid? They’d either forgotten to use contraception or had decided not to bother, which was exactly the kind of behaviour that people my age were always being warned against.

But anyway, I went over to her and put my arm stiffly around her shoulders, and the three of us stood there in a little huddle with Mark to one side… still watching me.

‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘When’s it due?’

‘Oh… some time in December.’

‘A Christmas baby?’ I asked.

‘A bit before that.’

‘Is it going to be a girl, or a boy?’

‘What a lot of questions,’ Mum said, and I knew I’d wounded her with my lack of enthusiasm. But really… did she expect me to fake something I didn’t feel? I’d only just found out this baby was going to exist. Maybe when it had actually arrived I’d figure out how to feel fond of it, but for now it was just a tiny party crasher.

‘It’s a boy,’ Ellie said straight away.

‘We don’t actually know,’ Mum corrected her. ‘We thought it was time to tell you two, but it’s still early days and we need to keep it to ourselves for now. So don’t go telling people at school or anything.’

‘It’s not exactly the kind of thing we talk about,’ I pointed out.

Mum ignored me and carried on. ‘That’s why I’ve been feeling a bit off-colour lately, but hopefully all that will stop soon and I’ll be a bit more back to normal.’

‘No, you won’t,’ I said, withdrawing my arm. ‘You’re going to be pregnant, and then you’re going to have a baby. That’s a whole new kind of normal. So are we going to move? Because it doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot of spare room in the flat. Unless you’re going to keep Junior in a shoebox under the bed.’

Mum’s reaction to this was one of pure, almost comic horror. How can you be so cold? But Mark stepped in before she could reproach me.

‘There are a couple of options,’ he said, ‘which we want to discuss with both of you. We want you to feel that your views are being taken into account. That you’re part of this whole thing. But maybe it’s a bit early to get into all of that just now.’

I folded my arms. ‘I don’t think it is. I have exams to do. Important exams. I shouldn’t even be here. I should be back home, revising. And then I’m going to sixth-form college. I need to know if this is going to affect all that.’

Mum had her arms round Ellie, as if soothing her, and was gazing across at the view of the sea. Now that Mark had intervened she appeared to have given up on the whole conversation, and was paying no attention to me at all.

‘I have a future, too, you know,’ I said.

‘Believe me, the last thing anyone wants is for this to disrupt your education,’ Mark said. ‘That isn’t going to happen, I promise you. All the changes are going to be for the better.’