Finally I get it. Gemma was right. I am not responsible for what happened when I was a kid. I never bloody have been.

Tears run down my cheeks. Now I can see the truth. It’s like my whole world has been turned upside down.

It was my father who betrayed me, not the other way round.

Chapter 46: Gemma

The fresh air doesn’t help clear my head, and all the cab drivers refuse to take Bear because he’s muddy, so I have to walk the whole way home. The humidity is back already, so I get back to the flat a sweaty, dirty mess.

I am so cross: at cabbies, at the world, and especially at the shitty fathers who pass their misery on to the next generation.

What I really need is a drink.

The more I tell myself it’s too risky, the more I crave one: a fridge-fresh glass of Sauvignon Blanc or Andrew’s favourite Viognier, or the slightly fizzy Portuguese one I can never pronounce. Any one of them would take the edge off just enough to make me care less about all this crap.

Would one glass make any difference to Saturday’s result? Logic tells me it wouldn’t. But . . . I would never know for certain, and staying away from booze is the grown-up thing to do.

I walk to the fridge and the blast of cool air when I open the door is so delicious I could stand there for an hour.

Instead I peer into the polar-white interior and try to spot something to eat that might be almost as desirable as a glass of wine. There’s some strong Cheddar in the drawer – can’t even remember buying it, but it might be nice with some crackers and red-onion marmalade.

And a glass of red Bordeaux.

I take out the cheese. Not quite past its use-by date, but it’s yellower than I’d like, slightly cracked, like dry heels.

I put the image out of my mind and cut it into near-identical slivers. Line them up on a plate. I’m usually a slapdash cook, but doing this might use up ten minutes of the hundreds that still lie ahead before my test.

The crackers in the cupboard are an artisan brand, one Andrew championed when it was a mother and daughter baking in their little Somerset kitchen. I haven’t bought any since, so the pack must date back to before he died.

How? How can they still be here when he isn’t? It makes no sense.

In the early days I used to go round the flat, picking up items that belonged to him – his hairbrush, his wallet, his sunglasses – unable to grasp that they existed when he no longer did. But I haven’t ever felt that way about a box of bloody biscuits.

Am I going backwards?

The best-before date was six months ago, but no one ever died from stale crackers, so I rip open the cellophane and stack half a dozen next to the cheese.