In the morning I hit the alarm straight away and pushed myself up, leaving Matty in bed. I pulled the wardrobe door open very quietly and extracted a dress, eased open the top drawer of the chest of drawers for underwear and tights. Next to the chest of drawers was a bag with my presents and cards from the previous night. I would have to sort through them later, put the cards out. I felt sick and exhausted, but at least I was up in time for tea and toast. Before I left for work, I took Matty a cup of tea and put it gently down on his side of the bed. He stirred as I did, opened his eyes briefly, frowned and rolled over. I bent and kissed the top of his head, whispered, ‘See you later.’ I left quietly.

*

I got through the working day with some difficulty but fortunately Adrian was hungover as well and we shared rolled eyes in the staff room. There were quite a few people from work I hadn’t invited – it would have got unwieldy otherwise – so we didn’t commiserate out loud but I enjoyed our sense of conspiracy. I couldn’t wait to get home after school.

I expected Matthew to be gone when I got back but instead he was sitting at our small kitchen table with the Peterborough Telegraph spread before him.

‘Oh, hello,’ I said as I came in. ‘I thought you were on lates.’

‘Hello,’ he said, but did not look up.

He carried on turning the pages of the paper while I took my coat and shoes off, filled the kettle. I glanced at him from time to time, trying to interpret his silence. When the tea was made, I brought both mugs over and sat down at the table.

‘Hey,’ I said gently, ducking my head a little to see his face.

He closed the paper, leaned back in his seat with a sigh, took a sip from his mug. All the time I watched.

‘You okay?’ I asked eventually, with the nagging feeling that it would have been nice if he had been asking me that question as I was the one who had been at work all day.

‘Nice of you to ask,’ he said.

All at once, I had had enough. I rose from my seat in a swift movement and as I did, so did he, quite suddenly, and then he was there in front of me, body to body, even though I had instinctively moved back against the counter. ‘Don’t you think,’ he hissed, his face very close to mine, ‘don’t you think you could make the effort to thank me? Is that too much to ask?’ I had no idea what he was talking about. ‘You and your pissed-up mates,’ he said, ‘all that smirking and giggling you do like fucking immature schoolgirls.’

‘I’m sorry, I …’ I said.