Malcolm turned and said, “Almost done now,” and Tom nodded and got up to lay the table.

When he had returned to the house later that afternoon, his parents had been arguing. Tommy could hear them from the hallway because the kitchen door was partially open. He didn’t remember most of what was said, only his feeling of terror at the savage note in his father’s voice, which he’d known instinctively was his fault. One thing he did recall was his father saying, “It’s just moan, moan, moan with you. Always fucking complaining about something.” Tommy remembered this afterwards because he was so shaken at hearing the f-word in a house where no one was ever allowed to swear, and frightened on his mother’s behalf that she was having this violent word thrown at her. His shock was so visceral it manifested in a sickness that moved from his stomach to his throat to his mouth, where he forcefully swallowed it down again.

Malcolm spooned the cauliflower cheese into two bowls and brought them over to the table.

“Looks good,” Tom managed. “Thanks.”

“Probably not as good as your mum’s,” Malcolm said. “But it’s edible, I hope.”

Tom nodded and didn’t reply. He hoped they could eat in silence again; the thought of more conversation was unbearable just now.

He remembered how he had waited in the hallway that day, paralysed, unable to creep up to his room for fear of being heard, of drawing attention to himself. What he should have done was go into the kitchen and tell his father it was his fault, that his father should be shouting at him, not at his mother. But instead he stayed frozen where he was, the pressure in his bladder now reminding him painfully that he had needed to pee all the way home. Finally, he heard his father shout, “You can all just fucking forget about the cinema next week,” and then the noise of the kitchen door banging. Suddenly, Tommy found he could move again. He hurtled down the corridor into the bathroom and locked the door behind him.

Standing in front of the toilet, he stared down into the bowl and tried to relax enough to pee. It was agony at first, being so desperate but unable to go. At last his heartbeat began to slow and the exquisite relief came, and as Tommy watched his urine hurtle downwards, he reflected on the final tragedy that had befallen them. Clearly the much-anticipated trip to the cinema in Oban would not go ahead after all. It was possible, he supposed, that by the following weekend his father would be in a better mood, would perhaps even have forgotten about the row. But Tommy was aware from experience this was unlikely to be the case. His father didn’t forget.