This was the reason Tamsin always gave: that she wanted to be able to pay her rent without accepting help from either Callum or her father.

‘You know I don’t mind if you can’t always make rent,’ Callum said now. ‘It just seems to me that it’s the perfect way for you to make the, the leap.’

‘Fuck,’ Tamsin said again. ‘I’ve heard this so many times, Cal. It’s like being stuck in a fucking feedback loop.’

‘Right.’

Callum shuffled onto his side so that he was facing away from her and reached down for a book. He took Our Man in Havana from the top of a precarious pagoda of half-read books and began to read. In this quietly devastating way, he brought the argument to a close.

Tamsin listened to three page turns before she began to cry. Callum put the book down and took her into his arms.

‘I’m sorry,’ she snuffled. ‘I’m so sorry. I know I’m being a bitch, I don’t know why … I think it’s just … my period’s on its way, that’s probably…’

‘Ssshhh, sshhh.’ Callum hooked his leg over her hip and drew her closer to him. ‘I love you.’

Six

Sophie Witrand was squashed into the back seat of the Fiat Bravo with her brother James and her sister Harriet. Her swollen chest jounced painfully over the potholes of the Cornish back roads. The Witrands were on their way to Penderick Manor, a dilapidated country house about a mile from Padstow where they holidayed every year.

‘Soph? So-oph.’ Six-year-old Harriet waved her chubby hand in front of Sophie’s blank face, just like she’d seen their mother do. ‘Soph, let’s say the car’s a chocolate factory. Here’s where the chocolate gets mixed.’ She reached down between her legs and mimed vigorous stirring. ‘And this is the pipe’ – she made two loose tunnels from her fingers and thumbs and sketched out a pipe leading up to the headrest in front of Sophie – ‘and here’s the tap where it comes running out. Mmmm, mmmm, it’s sooo good.’ Harriet turned on an imaginary tap and leaned forward to lap at the chocolate.

Sophie pulled down on her seatbelt, which was digging into the new hard bit underneath her left nipple, and wriggled away from her sister. ‘Mum, Harry won’t sit still. She’s being really annoying.’

‘Darling, she just wants to play with you.’

‘Harriet, quick, there’s a fire at the chocolate factory!’ James yelled, waving his hands to signify flames. ‘Nee-naw nee-naw nee-naw!’

‘Shut your gob, James,’ said Sophie.

‘Sophie!’ Mrs Witrand raised her voice. ‘I’ve told you before, I won’t have you using that unkind expression.’

Harriet started to cry; James’s flailing elbow had caught her on the side of her head.

‘Right!’ shouted Mr Witrand. ‘Sleeping Lions, the lot of you!’