‘Lou, I . . .’

I trailed off when I realised I had nothing more than that. My bluff was well and truly called and I realised, depressingly, that I was still as gutless as I’d been three weeks ago. A couple of decades ago. A teenager’s whole life ago.

The sun coming in through the window made dapples on Lou’s plaster cast. I noticed George had added a drawing of a stick figure in a twinset carrying a huge handbag and wearing a crown. There was a voice bubble coming out of her head that said, Off with her cast! Underneath it there was a tiny red George scratched inside a wonky star with about twenty jagged points. Damn straight you are, Georgie. Wolfie had also written something new – in Spanish – in thick red printing that reminded me of the graffiti I still hadn’t cleaned off. A mal tiempo, buena cara. Despite those few months in Ibiza, the only Spanish I’d picked up was Una cerveza, por favor, so I was none the wiser.

Lou stretched her fingers out to the sunlight and slowly turned up her palms. I felt my pulse rate slow, and thought, OK, if she stops now, I might be able to get through this. Just give me a sec and shush now, Lou. An angel.

‘You don’t . . . I mean, I don’t know if you have any idea just how much she loved you, Danny.’ She spoke so quietly I had to lean in to hear.

‘When you were at school and Dad was at work, you were pretty much all she ever talked about. Even those times when I had her all to myself, she . . . Well, you were always there in a way. She kind of . . .’ Lou shrugged. ‘I don’t know, kept you close.’

My silence seemed to encourage her to keep talking, which was the last thing I needed but at the same time, strangely, now the thing I wanted most.

‘I’m not sure how to put it, Danny. It was like she . . .’ Lou focused her eyes on a point out in the garden and paused for a few seconds, then gave a sudden jerky nod, like she’d worked it out to her satisfaction. ‘I’m just not sure you and I had the same mother, in a weird kind of way.’

It could have been the slipstream from that nod, but I suddenly tipped back on my haunches and had to put my arm out behind to steady myself, narrowly missing the bowl of water. What?

‘What?’ My voice sounded about three octaves higher than normal.

‘Didn’t you notice it, Danny? How differently Mum treated us?’

My first instinct was to tell Lou she was off her head; that she didn’t know what she was talking about. That actually I used to secretly, guiltily wish I was my mother’s favourite, and that I’d done everything in my power to remind her that I’d been there first. But I’d had to content myself with getting on with the very important job of being a big brother. Looking after my little sister, sharing my books, my toys. My parents.