I was expecting more silence. I would chip away with some more questions that sounded aggrieved even to my own ears and Jack would fend me off, then we would reach home and he would sidle away into his room. But then his head snapped round, so sharply that I thought I could hear his vertebrae cracking, and he was glaring full at me. I negotiated a broken-down bus that was wedged outside the bus lane and we moved forward in a slow stream of cars. Music pulsed out of most of them, the different tracks all welding together in a booming bass line that seemed to vibrate right through our silent vehicle. I gritted my teeth. Then Jack started shouting. ‘I want to live in a family with my dad. I don’t want to live with you always sighing and asking niggling questions like I don’t know what you’re trying to get at, right, just because I’m not the way you want me to be. I’m not what you and Lola want and that’s too bad, and you’re not what I want either, do you ever think of that? I want to do the stuff that I like. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me and to look at me like I’m weird because I don’t think I’m weird, there are other people like me, whatever you think. I like birds and animals, even Dad knows that, and Grandad did as well. Just because you don’t care about the difference between a pigeon and a grebe it doesn’t mean it’s nothing, you know, it doesn’t mean that. It’s important.’ He twisted round in the passenger seat and the rage came off him in waves that felt hot enough to scald and powerful enough to knock me sideways.

I tried to find a loose end in the tangle of words in order to pull at it. ‘Nobody feels sorry for you. Do you mean Caz and Graham and the boys? Why should they? And you are what I want,’ I soothed.

‘That’s a lie. What do you mean? You want me to be like Dan, or a girl like Lola. You can pretend and be all understanding and patient but I know the difference, I know what the truth is.’