“Look, help me here, Rebecca!” Dad erupts at last. “I’m trying to get justice for Brent!”

“Oh, Graham.” Rebecca gives her mysterious smile. “You’re such a good man. You always were. You have a wonderful flow.”

“Justice,” mutters Becca, with an eye roll, and I feel a spike of irritation.

“What’s your problem?” I demand. “Why are you being so negative? We’re here to help your dad!”

“Maybe you are.” She glowers back at me. “But maybe it’s too late. Where were you in 2002?”

“What?” I look at her blankly.

“Dad asked Corey for help back in 2002, when he was at a real low. Put on a suit, went to see him in Vegas. He could have used your dad by his side then.”

“But my dad was in England,” I say, puzzled. “He didn’t know.”

“Of course he knew,” says Becca scathingly. “Dad wrote him.”

OK, I’m not having this. “Dad!” I interrupt the conversation he’s having with Rebecca. “Did you know about Brent asking Corey for help in 2002?”

“No.” Dad looks blank. “I heard nothing about that.”

“You never got a letter?” I gesture at Becca. “She thinks you got a letter from Brent.”

“Of course I didn’t!” says Dad hotly. “Do you think if I’d got a letter from Brent about this horrendous situation, I would have ignored it?”

Becca seems taken aback by this response. “Well, Corey told Dad you knew. Corey told Dad you’d been in touch about it and your view was…He said—” She stops herself, and I find myself wondering what exactly Corey said.

“Becca, I think Corey must have lied,” says Dad, more gently.

OK. Now this all makes sense. Corey lied and blamed my dad, and that’s why Becca hates us.

“Do you understand now?” I turn to Becca. “My dad didn’t say whatever heinous thing Corey said he did.”

So you didn’t need to be so hostile, I add silently. Or say, “Fuck off, princess girl.”

I’m hoping Becca will respond with something like: Oh my God. Now I see it all. I’ve wronged you; please accept my apologies. But she just shrugs and looks at her phone and mutters, “Anyway, you’ll never get anything out of Corey. No chance.”

God, real people are so disappointing. I’m sure she would have done it better in the box-set version. A minute or two later, she says she has to leave, and I’m really not sorry.

“Bye, princess girl,” she says, as she shrugs her bag onto her shoulder.

I want to say, Bye, horribly rude and negative girl, but instead I just smile and say, “Keep in touch!”

Not, I add in my head.

When she and Rebecca have gone, the atmosphere eases a little. Suze heads off to her room to check in with her kids. Mum is wondering whether we should order more snacks or whether that will spoil our dinners, and Janice is reading out loud from a leaflet about “spirit guides,” when Rebecca appears again.