The doctor told her it wasn’t unusual for babies and little kids to hold their breath, although why they do it nobody knows. But even on the very rare occasion they faint, their clever little bodies automatically start breathing again. Failsafe, apparently. Harmless, the doctor said. Not harmless, she said. Not harmless to me.

When it happened after that, which was less than a handful of times in the first few years of my life, Lou told me her own heart would stop dead until I started breathing again. But then I just grew out of it, like the doctors told her I would. Never did it again, she said, and she hadn’t had to worry about me since. She looked so happy when she said that, sitting on the floor of the B&B, wrapped up in a big fluffy towel, that just for a minute I felt bad. But then I thought about all those other little babies going about their business and figured we all have our reasons – why give her something to worry about? So I never told her, but you know, swings and roundabouts. Lou doesn’t tell me everything either.

And I’m trying very hard not to connect any dots between my behaviour and my mother’s, but I know the dots are there.

‘Wolfie?’

George’s voice is quieter now and he sounds a bit wobbly, like he’s having second thoughts I’m even still in here. I shoot a look over to the window, and for a second I weigh up the odds of making it or landing like a pancake outside my uncle’s shed door.

I picture George’s worried little face out there in the hall, not yelling, like he was told, even though I haven’t answered him after three times. It feels like something inside me is coming apart, but I catch a huge open-mouth breath and swallow it down.

‘Coming.’

I look back at the girl in the mirror and bare my teeth. It’s far from a smile and she doesn’t look ready. I open the door.

‘Yo, Georgie. I’m ready. Let’s go.’

21

Danny

I’d started to wake up very early, which was interesting and just a little annoying. I’ve never been a natural early riser, but after my fruit machine win and the ensuing lack of urgency to get another job, there really hadn’t been any reason to get up before my coffee alarm. But now, here I was waking up of my own accord an hour, sometimes more, before that.

It wasn’t just a matter of pulling the duvet over my head and dropping back off to sleep, either, because as soon as my eyes pinged open, a switch flicked and set off a free-for-all of thoughts, trying to elbow their way to the front of my brain at the same time. It was a bit like that one night I’d worked as crowd control at Wembley for a Take That concert. Never again, but I did gain a whole new respect for those security guys. And Take That, as it goes.