She shuffled sideways to make some space and get a better look at him, so she could tell from his face if he meant what he said. It was such a strange and outlandish proposal, but Peter said, ‘Do it,’ and he looked so serious, grim even. The spit of Geoff Connor, people said; the one that got away, the architect – by his spectacular absence – of their misfortune. Apparently, Peter had the same hair – dark blond, naturally wavy – and the same patrician, aquiline nose. If Peter had worn a suit to work, and black Oxfords, and if he’d shaved more often and had his hair cut, he could pass for a young MP, or a lawyer. But he’d never had the chance to shine; he’d left school at sixteen, kept the family fed and clothed with his wages from the steelworks, a place he’d always loathed, until he met Toddy, when life brightened for him. Alison understood what she owed him, she truly did. She understood, too, that their father’s disappearance had been far harder on Peter, who’d been six when he left, old enough to have scattered, fractured memories, and to feel the perpetual chill of abandonment. Geoff had never been back. Never checked on his children, never come to see them, never written to them, never sent a present at Christmas, a card on birthdays, a chocolate egg at Easter. He could be dead, for all they knew, and Alison didn’t much care. But Peter did. Peter had had a daddy, then lost a daddy. And then, because he was a thoroughgoing decent person, he’d filled the gap that Geoff Connor had left in their lives, so that even at six, seven, eight years old, Peter could be entirely depended on by Catherine to make sure Alison survived. This was what he was doing again now: trying to do, anyway, but she was having none of it.

‘I’m hungry,’ she said to him. She hadn’t eaten all day. ‘Come on, keep me company.’

She stood up and offered a hand, but he pushed himself to his feet without her help. The marks on his neck were violently red, and Alison could see bruising too, a purplish, bluish hue high on his neck where the rope had been tightest. This was the day that Peter had tried to kill himself and then changed his mind; this was the day he could’ve died. But there’d be tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and together, they’d cope.