Jack was sitting in his armchair again when I got home from work, apparently absorbed in Neighbours. He looked dirtier, if that were possible, and even more exhausted than he had done yesterday. An empty plate blobbed with jam and dusted with toast crumbs rested on the floor beside him. It was Lola’s last night at home. She was ironing, also with her eyes fixed on the television. The forgiving winter gloom that usually hid the worst of our semi-basement kitchen had given way to a watery brightness that announced summer and showed up all the layers of dust as well as the peeling wallpaper. The place needed a spring-clean. The whole house needed a spring-clean and a new stair carpet wouldn’t have done any damage either. I let my bag drop to the floor.

‘Good day, Mum?’ Lola asked.

‘Er, not bad, thanks. What about you?’

She nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘Jack?’

Just the way that he shrugged his shoulders made me want to yell at him. I took a deep breath and began rummaging in the freezer. It was going to have to be defrost du jour tonight, because I didn’t have the energy to start a meal from scratch.

As soon as Neighbours was over Jack removed himself upstairs. I sat on the sofa and watched the remainder of Channel 4’s News, and when Lola finished her ironing (leaving a pile of Jack’s and mine untouched) she brought over two glasses of red wine and joined me. She kicked off her shoes and curled up so her head lay against my shoulder and I stroked her shiny hair.

‘I’ll miss you,’ I said, as I always did when she was about to go off. I did rely on her, more than I should have done, for companionship but also for the lovely warmth of her life that I enjoyed at second hand – the parties and nights out clubbing that she’d describe in tactfully edited detail the next day, the long phone conversations, the friends who dropped in and lounged around the kitchen, and the certainty that anything was possible that seemed to govern them all.

‘I know, Mum. I’ll miss you too. But I’ll be back for the weekend in a couple of weeks.’

‘So you will. Is there any more of that red? How does he seem to you, the last couple of days?’

‘He’ was always Jack in Lola’s and my conversations.

‘Very quiet.’

‘But he’s been making less fuss about school the last couple of days. I think maybe the worst’s over.’

Lola said, ‘I hope so.’

Jack ate most of the dinner, finishing Lola’s portion even after he had devoured his own second helping, then wiping his plate clean with chunks of bread torn off the loaf.

Lola tried to tease him about his appetite. ‘Hey, bruv. Is school food getting even worse?’

‘I was hungry, okay? What’s wrong with that?’