I’m stapled to the spot, my feet as heavy as my heart, and this box of his stuff. Water drips off the spokes on my brolly and I move it to one side for a moment. Rain falls on my face, then a break in the clouds brings warmth, dryness. It’s like an omen. A precursor to my breaking free.

One way or another, by the end of this evening, I will have come out of this nightmare for good.

I walk, head held high, the three streets to his parents’ house. My heart is in my mouth but I’m going to do this. He can have his box back. I can ask him what really happened. Then I can move on. I turn into their drive. His car’s not there. I pause, relieved and disappointed in equal measure. Relieved because I’m not feeling nearly as in control as I want to be, and disappointed because surely this means I have to come back again. I crunch up the newly gravelled path and the rain starts again, in earnest this time. Their ginger tomcat weaves through my legs, meowing. He’s sodden, like that cat at the end of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, though I suspect I don’t much resemble Audrey Hepburn; more’s the pity. I knock on the door, placing the box on the top step, and wait. Through frosted glass, I see Daniel’s mum approaching, closing their kitchen door behind her. The cat legs it through the flap in the garage door at the same time as she opens their front one. ‘Oh! Kat! Hello, love. What a nice surprise.’ She wipes floury hands on her apron, then pulls me in by the shoulders so she can kiss each cheek, looking over my shoulder as she does so.

‘Hi, Pam, cooking again?’ I say, annoyed with myself for stating the obvious.

‘Scones. Or do we say “scons”?’ She mimes the quote marks in mid-air. ‘Who cares! Yes, I am.’ She looks up at the gloomy sky. ‘Are you… coming in?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘Oh, okay, love. Fine.’ She looks back up the road again.

‘I was just…’ I point to the box I’ve lugged from home to tram to bus to here. ‘The last of his stuff. He was supposed to collect it.’

She bends down to pick it up and we clash heads slightly as I do the same. ‘Sorry,’ we both say.

‘I didn’t realise there was anything left…’ She holds the box to her chest, looking at me with pity and sadness. ‘Are you okay?’ she asks.

‘Yeah, fine,’ I say with gusto, because lying is better than standing on your ex-boyfriend’s mum’s doorstep and swearing. ‘You?’

‘Yes, love. I’m fine. We’re fine. Colin will be sorry he missed you.’

I nod, wondering if I should ask her. It’s probably not the done thing, really. Did your son dump me because he was shagging someone else? I need to know though. I need to be clear. I need to—