And if I can’t calm myself, I don’t know how I’m going to get it back.

When I get up on Sunday morning the world feels unreal, flimsy, as though everything around me has been cut out of cardboard. Charlie wakes up ravenous, demanding breakfast, a bowl of Frosties plus two slices of toast. He gulps it all down, telling me, ‘Honestly, Mummy, I don’t feel ill at all.’

When I take his temperature again though, I tell him that he is. Charlie is confused, complaining, but I put the TV on for him and tell him to watch whatever he wants.

I do the only thing I know to do to keep safe. I retreat from everything, cut off from everyone. It is light outside, a bright February day, but I don’t open any of the curtains in the flat and I keep the blinds in the kitchen drawn. I can’t bear the thought of anyone looking in. In the gloom, Charlie channel-hops, still in his pyjamas. We pull the big duvet through onto the sofa again and this time I climb in beside him. I hold him to me, knowing that I am holding him too tight. Alastair rings and texts, and rings again. I let it go to answerphone each time.

Every few hours, I give Charlie more Calpol. I don’t check the pack, but I tell myself I can’t have gone over the dosage. The Calpol makes him compliant, sleepy. Every so often, I make him hot milk. I can lie with him on the sofa, warm and huddled.

I tell myself, even if there is something wrong with him, no one needs to know. What if I kept him here, with me, for ever? Just the two of us, like this? We could do that, we could manage, we could create our own little world. Even if his mind was falling apart, I would look after him, it wouldn’t matter. We wouldn’t need anyone else. Together we’d be safe. Together, both our minds could be sound.

Chapter 27

BACK THEN

A week after the day at the beach and it is still so hot. There is only a little bit left of the summer holidays now, but it isn’t getting much cooler. It’s been a very long, very hot summer.

Today, Prin and Jane are playing in Daddy’s potting shed. It’s shady in here, dusty with old dried dirt, and there are soft cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling. Prin doesn’t mind the cobwebs. She knows spiders are more scared of her than the other way round. She and Jane are wearing sandals and their toes are dusted brown from the scatterings of soil that line the floor.