There was a catch of distress in his voice, and it was this that she couldn’t ignore, so she stopped and turned, and looked at him from the distance between them, her chest heaving.

‘Please,’ Daniel said. ‘Come back, wait for your bus. I’m going home.’

She came back towards him and together they walked in silence the short distance back to her bus stop; then she said, ‘I’m really sorry, Daniel. I can’t really explain how I feel.’

He was silent, head down, hands thrust into his pockets.

‘I don’t have a house like yours or a family like yours,’ she said.

‘Right, well, I don’t care a toss about that,’ he said.

‘No, I know, but, oh, I do care, and I … Daniel, please, just leave things be, will you?’

He looked at her and nodded. ‘You bet,’ he said; then he kissed her dryly on the cheek, and walked away without looking back, towards home, where he knew his mother would be at the window, waiting for him with her questioning, sympathetic face.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow though?’ Alison called with a rising note of insecurity in her voice, so he raised a hand to show her he’d heard, and that yes, she’d see him tomorrow, but he didn’t turn and smile, because he was hurt, and bewildered, and if she was going to hide her feelings, then so was he.

His mother was standing in the hallway when he got in.

‘Well?’ she said.

He shrugged.

‘Whatever’s the matter with her?’

‘Mum, I don’t know.’ He felt a failure for not knowing, and she could see this so she didn’t push. He started to climb the stairs.

‘There’s crumble,’ she said, but without conviction. If she could, if he’d listen, she’d tell him to go carefully with Alison, she’d tell him not to lose his heart to a girl who fled at the mention of her own mother. But when he went into his bedroom and closed the door, she only sighed and let him be.

The bus lumbered towards Attercliffe, and when it finally stopped for her, Alison walked briskly through the short network of streets to her house. She knew she could mend things with Daniel tomorrow, but there was a cold knot of anxiety in her belly now, as she opened the door and braced herself for whatever lay in wait. All was quiet. No chaos, no mess, no Martin. There was a smell of stale urine, but that wasn’t a mystery because there was a pile of Catherine’s underwear on the floor by the sink, waiting to be washed.

‘Peter?’ she called.

‘Upstairs,’ he shouted back.