‘Matthew and I were due to meet in Sullivan’s later tonight to talk about the folk club we’re starting up together,’ he sniffles, ‘yet here we are instead in hospital. God, I hope he’s going to pull through from this. I can’t understand it. He would never drive the car after a drink. Never.’

They were going to start up a folk club together? Matthew’s friend? I’m fully aware my mouth is gaping open now as I stare at Martin and try and put the pieces of the puzzle that has just formed in my head together. Martin is Matthew’s new friend, they were going to start a folk club together. Matthew told me he’d met someone special …

‘Martin, are you … are you Matthew’s new partner?’ I ask, wanting to kick myself for being so presumptuous and blind to what’s been going on in my brother’s life. Emily looks like she’s going to faint as Martin nods, glancing at us both, wondering why we are so behind the times.

‘Yes,’ he says, embarrassed now. ‘I thought he may have told you by now?’

I don’t know what to say. I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for hours as the penny drops, making a lot of things about Matthew make sense, but also making me a lot more confused. He said earlier he had big news, that he wanted to tell me first, after having told Mam and Dad, and I could kick myself now for stealing his thunder when he was just about to tell me something he’s been holding in all his life.

‘Charlotte, did you know about this?’ Emily asks me, her face twisted in sheer confusion. ‘I mean, it’s no big deal to me, it’s just a bit of a—’

‘I’d no idea,’ I whisper, ‘but it does make sense now. He asked me to come and see him. He was going to tell me this evening.’

Matthew was just about to tell me in the bar, but then he stopped and asked me about my love life, and I took the opportunity because I was on a one-track mission to tell him about Tom. I hadn’t for a second thought he wanted to see me for something as huge as this.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say to Martin, rubbing my forehead. ‘We aren’t home as much as we should be, but I think Matthew was going to tell me all about you, just before … just before this happened.’

Martin takes a deep breath and opens the buttons of his fine woollen coat, then takes it off, wrapping it over his left arm. My mother notices him at last and gets up, then falls into him, hugging him tightly while my father stands beside her staring at the ground. He then glances at Martin and nods in his direction.