Lola whirled out of the house. I went upstairs, knocked softly on Jack’s door and, when there was no answer, turned the knob. Sometimes he bolted it but tonight it opened. The light was out and I could hear his breathing, although something told me he wasn’t asleep. ‘Jack?’

There was no answer.

Cassie’s room had been sweet with the innocence and trustingness of babyhood, but in here all I could pick up was the darkness of rejection.

‘Goodnight,’ I whispered.

FOUR

He walked off up the road, very slowly, his bag slouched across his back and the soles of his trainers barely lifting off the pavement. At the corner he paused and looked right and left, but he never glanced over his shoulder to see if I was still standing in the doorway of the house. I watched until he turned left, in the direction of school, and plodded out of my sight. Only then did I go back inside and begin to put together my things for work.

I was shaking with the tension of the morning. It was the third day of the summer term and every morning so far Jack had refused to get out of bed. Then, when I finally hauled him out from under the covers, he refused to get dressed. He didn’t speak, let alone argue; once movement became unavoidable he just did everything very, very slowly.

‘Jack, you have to go to school. Everybody does. It’s a fact of life.’

He shrugged and turned away. While I stood over him, he had got as far as putting on his school shirt and it hung loose over his pyjama bottoms. I could see faint blue veins under the white skin of his chest and his vulnerability made me want to hold him, but I knew if I tried to touch him he would pull away.

‘Jack, we have to talk about this.’

‘Talk,’ he muttered finally, as if the mere suggestion exasperated him.

‘Yes, talk.’ I struggled to be patient and moderate. You could ache for him, for what he was going through, and at the same time irritation made you long to slap him. Hard.

‘Mum.’

‘Yes?’ I said eagerly.

‘Go away if you want me to get dressed.’

‘I’ll make you some toast. Would you like an egg?’

‘No.’

‘Downstairs in five minutes, please.’

Five minutes turned into fifteen. He ate his toast very slowly while I sat waiting.

‘You’re going to be late.’

‘Oh no.’

‘For God’s sake,’ I snapped, ‘what’s the matter with you? What’s wrong with school? If you won’t talk to me or anyone else how can we help you? What’s wrong?’

Jack fumbled with a knife, then dropped it with a clatter. He looked around the kitchen as if surveying his life, and then said out of a pinched mouth, ‘Everything.’

The bleakness of this was unbearable.