‘No, no. It’s fine. I get it.’ He folds his arms, pushing his chest out slightly and clearly searching for the Mr Just-Call-Me-Mark Barnes confidence again. ‘To be honest, I’m off tomorrow anyway. If the weather stays this good I might just head down the Wig and Pen with a paper and sink a few pints. Medicinal of course.’

‘Sorry!’ I say, and the look he gives me is one I’ve not seen before. Warm. Gentle even. Like someone capable of caring. I’m taken aback, but before I can say anything else he spins on his heel and leaves, again. I hold my breath in case he comes back, but get nothing other than a waft of his aftershave and the feeling I’ve just made a mistake, though I don’t really know why.

There is some chatter outside before the nurses erupt into giggles and someone wolf whistles in the direction of my door. ‘Say nothing!’ I shout, and they collapse into giggles again.

I can hear my best friend Lou’s voice in my head: Get back on the horse, Kat. Any horse. Don’t be picky. Just get on it and ride away those blues. Except I’m not ready. There’s a ping of an email from my computer, and I click to open it, grateful for some distraction. It’s from Lou. An update to her Pinterest board with new pictures of bridesmaid dresses and honeymoon locations. Because that’s all I need right now – a wedding, to remind me just how lonely I really feel.

Chapter Ten

RHYS

I push open the door to my childhood home, a two-bed, terraced house on the outskirts of Sheffield.

‘Mum, are you in?’ I shout, taking my boots off and putting them neatly away, as Mum insists all visitors do. It’s familiar. It’s safe. I moved out nearly ten years ago, but it never felt like I left. Maybe because David was still here, maybe because she didn’t bother redecorating my room, despite doing up the rest of the place. When Dad left, this was our happy place. It was our home. The three of us against the world. I run my hand against the wall. Maybe I should move back in for a while.

‘Mum?’

The synthetic odour of pine bleach drifts down the stairs; she’s cleaning again. She loves to clean. More so since David died. If it were possible for a house to cartoon sparkle, this one would. Diamond glints would emanate from skirting boards, dado rails and shelf tops. Mum’s is the only one in the row to have immaculate nets at the window, clipped front gardens and perfectly cleaned windows washed the old-fashioned way: vinegar and the local gazette.‘Hello, love,’ she shouts down. ‘I’m doing the bathroom. Put the kettle on, I’m proper gasping.’

‘You’re gonna bleach that new pattern off – I’m not tiling it again!’

I head into the kitchen and fill the kettle, peering out of the window. When I was growing up, I had no idea we lived on the breadline, or that times were in any way tough. My redundant steelworker Dad met a woman on the picket line. Left us without really looking back. For ages we struggled. Hand to mouth, Mum would say. This house was rented off the council for years, till the Thatcher era when, like so many others, Mum was encouraged to buy it. She pushed and worked and borrowed and grafted to keep it in good order, just to give us our own place. Something done without Dad. In spite of him, even. As soon as I could contribute, I did. Bits of cash here and there to help out. My paper-round wages. My bar tips from glass collecting when I turned thirteen. She’d stuff it in the breadbin, only using it when she was desperate. I still do give her cash; she still won’t spend it. Maybe she would if I lived here, and at least then she couldn’t go AWOL. And I probably wouldn’t end up in places I shouldn’t.