When I got home, Dad wasn’t there. His coat and shoes by the door had gone, his briefcase, his tennis bag. That was, I realize now, the last outing where I’d feel like a kid, not a carer. I had become the head of the household.

Kerry has stopped at a turnstile. ‘I don’t know. For you to feel OK?’ She shakes her head. ‘But that’s about you. I wish I knew that I wanted for me.’

‘Won’t medicine be enough?’

‘Like it’s been enough for you?’

‘I can’t blame medicine for the mess I got myself into, but I’m doing my best to dig myself out.’ I help her over the turnstile. ‘I wasn’t sure till now why I suggested coming here, but I just remembered. You and me, against the world. You probably don’t remember but it was the day my dad left and—’

‘I remember.’ She says it so tenderly that I want to cry. But I won’t. It’s not something I do. ‘It was shitty what he did. Abandoning you to look after your mum.’

‘No, it was fine, I wanted to look after her,’ I say automatically. Except, is that true? I had no choice in the matter.

‘I know what your mum is like. More than anyone else, I’ve seen her at her worst.’

‘She can’t help herself.’ My voice cracks. No. I am not going to cry. ‘She needs me.’

Kerry hears my weakness. She reaches for my hand. ‘Being needed is addictive, isn’t it? But what I’m realizing is that there’s a time to help, and a time when you have to let people get on with it for themselves.’

I want to ask her how am I meant to do that when my mother is so helpless?

But she’s turning around to go back to the car. After we climb in, she waits before starting the engine.

‘What I said about not leaving me, Kerry. You mustn’t stay because you feel sorry for me,’ I say, wanting her to deny it, to say we’re together because she loves me. ‘I know it’s my turn, now, to support you the way you’ve supported me. Let me do that. Please.’

‘I don’t want you to be something you’re not. That’s not how love works.’

Love. ‘Tell me what you do need, then.’

‘Right now what I need is more time.’

At least she’s not saying it’s over.

As she reverses with a ferocious whoosh, I make a promise in my head, to her and to myself. Starting tonight, I will do everything I can to fix myself, and then fix us. Even if I fail, at least I will have tried.

Chapter 34: Kerry

20 September 2004

It’s like someone flicked a switch: the secret one that turns Tim into the ideal partner.