‘I don’t want to talk,’ she said warningly.

‘We don’t have to. You can come into our room for a bit, watch TV…’

If only I could spend a little time with her, I was sure I could make this right. I had to make it right. Mark would have to stay out of it, back down in the bar. He’d done enough damage for one night…

‘He said you didn’t tell him,’ Ava said.

‘Well, it wasn’t quite like that… No. All right. I didn’t.’

‘I guess that’s something,’ Ava said. She was looking at me in disgust. ‘Finally, you’re telling me the truth. But right now, that’s about as much as I can take.’

She reached forward and slid her keycard into the slot. The catch clicked and she opened the door. Inside it was dark and quiet; Ellie was sound asleep.

‘Ava,’ I said, and reached out and touched her arm.

She shook me off. ‘Were you ever going to tell me? If Mark hadn’t come back?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said slowly.

‘Liar. You wouldn’t have done. It messes up the story, doesn’t it? All those years I felt sorry for you. Now it turns out that you were the last person I should have felt sorry for.’

‘Please, Ava, let me try to explain. Mark was married. He’d just gone back to his wife. He made it pretty clear he wasn’t interested.’

Ava was looking at me with the full force of disgust that only an adolescent is capable of.

‘I don’t want to hear it,’ she said, and retreated into the bedroom and shut the door.

I was left standing there in the corridor, at a complete loss.

Should I hammer on the door? Insist on talking to her? What good would that do? She’d just told me, in the clearest of terms, to get lost. It would have to wait until she was ready… if she ever was.

I retreated to the room I was sharing with Mark and sent her a message:

I’m next door if you change your mind.

Then I messaged Mark:

I’m in our room. Ava’s in hers. Very angry, doesn’t want to talk.

I was half hoping I’d hear a little tap on the door, or that she’d reply to my message, but my phone stayed blank and silent and when I heard footsteps approaching outside it turned out to be Mark.

He came over and sat next to me on the bed; I was lying back, propped up by pillows. He attempted a smile. ‘We really screwed up, didn’t we?’

Various horrible, hurtful things came to mind to say. We screwed up? You mean you screwed up. We had an agreement. Now look what’s happened. What were you thinking?

But what was the point of blaming him?

‘It’s really me she’s angry with,’ I said.

He couldn’t hide it; he was relieved.

‘Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that she knows,’ he said. ‘She’ll probably feel better about it once she’s slept on it, won’t she? I suppose we’ll just have to give her time.’ He reached out and patted me on the knee. ‘You should try and get some sleep. You look worn out. After all, Ava’s not the only one of our children we have to worry about.’