‘She’s coming back with me,’ Michael said. ‘I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but you’re nobody now.’ He was so sure of his rights, so certain of his superiority over this interloper. The McCormacks of Adelaide: social mafia, invincible, entitled. He hadn’t yet discovered the details, he’d acted only on a word of concern from Beatriz and a hunch of his own, and he’d yet to decide how he felt about Ali’s betrayal, but he already knew he would neither leave her, nor ask her to leave, yet nor would he do what his mother always did and turn a blind eye. He would simply get her home, get to the bottom of this fiasco, and keep a closer eye on her in future.

Dan looked at Ali, who looked back at him with some sort of plea in her eyes, although he couldn’t say what. Help me? Deck him? Don’t make my life more difficult than it is already? Yeah, he thought, probably the last one, probably that.

‘OK,’ Dan said to Michael. ‘Since Alison obviously doesn’t feel up to introducing me, I’m Dan Lawrence, a long-lost friend of hers from Sheffield days.’ Then he turned to Ali. ‘Is this it?’ he said. ‘Is this how it ends?’

‘Yes, mate,’ Michael said, ‘you can bet your bottom dollar it is.’

Dan ignored him, didn’t even blink, just stared at his girl. ‘Alison?’

Tears ran down her face, and she took a step towards him. Dan held his ground. He wasn’t going to help; it was up to her now: she stood between the past and the future, and only she could choose.

‘Her name’s Ali,’ Michael said. ‘And you just spoke your last word to her. You don’t get to help yourself to my wife. Ali, grab your things and get in the car.’

Now Sheila, who’d been hovering in the kitchen, agitated, eavesdropping, uncertain how to help, came into the room and said, with a kind of desperation, ‘Michael, you should at least give these two some space to talk,’ and he turned on her, his face contorted by fury, as if he’d kept a lid on his anger for just this moment, and said, ‘Shut your mouth, you wicked old dyke, you’ve done enough damage already.’

Ali was crying, and through the tears she said, ‘Michael, be quiet. Sheila played no part in this. Sheila, I’m so sorry.’ Sobbing into her hands, splintered by grief, no comfort to be had from anyone in the room. Dan watched her with a detachment that came from extreme sadness. He hadn’t realised she would be so easily overcome.

‘Get your stuff and get in the car,’ Michael said to Ali.