When I wake up, I’m wet with sweat, the sheet wrapped round my torso, my heart stuttering in my chest. For a moment I think I’m back in The Pines, in my room beneath the eaves, but then I remember. I’m in a small bedroom in a converted barn called Maregiglio on the Isola del Piccolo Giglio off the Tuscan coast. I brought my father here last night, even though my sister had expressly forbidden it, and now everyone hates me. It’s three more days until Ruby-May’s anniversary. I’ve got three days to get everyone to forgive him. And me.

The curtain moves very slightly; there’s a thin draught of air coming through the sill, or maybe it’s from the gap under the door where the floorboards are uneven. They squeak between my toes as I flex them. I stretch, letting my spine pop. I look in Dad’s room. He’s not there, but his journal is on the dressing table. He must have found it after all. It’s navy-blue with elegant gold writing on the front. It’s a two-year diary; he always used to complain that one-year planners never spanned the academic year properly, since it stretches from September through to the following May. He’s always had a twoyear planner for as long as I can remember; he wrote appointments in it and made notes about the meetings he attended, the lectures he gave. I guess he must have kept the habit, even after he retired.

I pad down the corridor, wondering where the kids are. There’s the sound of someone talking coming from Theo and Lotte’s room; I tiptoe in, getting ready to shout ‘Boo!’ at them.

Matt’s sitting on Theo’s bed, the iPad on his knee, smiling at whoever he’s speaking to. He looks up in surprise. I hold up my hand in apology and retreat. Why is he hiding in here to make a FaceTime call? And what’s with the guilty expression? Maybe he told Amy he wouldn’t work over the holidays. He doesn’t resume his conversation while I’m in earshot, though.

The children are in the sitting room, playing Snakes and Ladders with Luca.

‘Hey, how are you doing?’

‘Theo has gone down a giant snake all the way to the bottom. I’m winning!’ Lotte yells.

‘That’s my girl,’ I say, holding up my hand for a high five.

‘Pearl is playing too,’ she tells me, tucking Ruby-May’s doll next to her.

‘Luca is going to teach me chess,’ says Theo. ‘Snakes and Ladders is for kids.’

An ear-splitting noise, as if a builder with a drill has just moved in, makes me jump.

‘Sorry!’ shouts Joe, when it stops.

He’s with my father in the kitchen, and they’re both peering at a NutriBullet full of pond-scum.