‘I am an addict,’ she tells him. ‘And I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you.’

Duke keeps watching her. His breathing gets shallow, and he’s aware, in the back of his mind, that he can see the quick rise and fall of his chest in his peripheral vision.

‘There’s no excuse for what I’ve done. I won’t try to find reasons for letting you down, and I don’t need you to say it’s okay or that you forgive me. I broke your trust over years, and so if you ever decide to let me try to build it back up, I will commit the rest of my life to that. They say relapse is always possible, but I’m not going back to who I was. I’m really not. I don’t need you to do anything for me. I don’t need you to help me through this. I’m fine. I’ve got AA, and Roger, and a job, now, too. I’m just so glad you even called this morning, that I get to see you, your handsome face, pet … My love has not been enough,’ she tells him, and she’s welling up, looking up to the ceiling like somehow that might stem her tears. ‘But it’s all I have. So … I’m going to try, okay?’

She breaks off and reaches for her handbag on the floor, rifling through it, presumably for tissues. Duke closes his eyes and sighs deeply. Can this really be it? Just like that, his mother has changed? It feels stupid to trust it, naïve. Immature. He had to grow up fast, having a mother who loved booze more than him. He’s used to life without a mum. And yet …

‘Was it my fault?’ he asks then, his voice wavering on the edge of cracking. He hates himself for needing her to say no, for being a thirty-seven-year-old man who needs Mummy to give him a big hug. He’s done so well without her. So, so well. It might even be because of her that he’s done so well, if not in spite of. She couldn’t love him but, look at that, now the whole world does. But … it isn’t enough. ‘If I had been better,’ he presses. ‘A better son … done better at school or did more around the house …’ He is openly crying now. Bugger. Bugger, bugger, bugger. His mother hands him one of the tissues she found.