Anna has been dead for a whole year. Twelve long months, 365 arduous days, and too many agonising hours, minutes and seconds to fathom. One winter morning she was there, alive and glowy-cheeked in my bedroom doorway, then, just a few hours later, she was gone.

It is still the previous day in England, but I call David anyway.

‘Darling.’ He answers on the second ring.

I open my mouth to reply, but all that comes out is a strangled sort of gasp.

‘Oh, Genie.’

I can’t stand his sympathy. It makes me feel worse. It makes my horrible snarling guilt intensify. I wish he would shout at me – somebody needs to shout at me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, but he cuts across me before I can continue, always so ready to reassure and comfort. What he doesn’t understand is that I don’t deserve either of those things.

I’m not sure exactly when I decided that I must tell David the truth – whether I came to it gradually, or I blinked and the notion was there – but once I knew that I was going to do it, I became almost impatient, as if it wasn’t the most terrifying thing imaginable. No, strike that, the most terrifying thing imaginable had already happened – and then some. All I know is that I have to tell someone. I can’t keep holding on to it while it erodes me from the inside out.

Guessing that talking about Anna is only making me feel worse, David cautiously changes the subject. He is now telling me a story about some party he went to at his publishers’ in London. His editor gifted him a specially made Evangeline ornament sculpted from glass. Sales of his latest book, Evangeline And … The First Father Christmas, have surpassed all others in his genre, and there is talk of an animated TV series. My adoptive dad is very much the golden boy of the moment.

‘That’s great,’ I say, staring hard at a scuff mark on the wall of my little apartment. It is still early, but the sunlight is already splashing through the open curtains in great golden waves.

‘David,’ I say, but he isn’t listening.

‘Did I tell you who they’ve got to do the audiobook, darling? Only the girl from that period drama we used to watch on Sunday nights – you know the one. Anna fancied the lead actor something rotten, that Irish fellow with the preposterous hair. What was the name of it again? Anyway, it doesn’t matter, but she is very popular, apparently – won a Bafta last year, or so they told me, and then—’

‘David!’

‘Yes?’

‘I need to tell you something.’

‘What’s happened – are you hurt? Did someone hurt you?’

‘No,’ I say patiently, then almost add, It’s me who did the hurting.