Mum ignored him and said, ‘Listen, Snow, your father and I are not getting divorced. What we are getting is separated. It’s different. We want to live in two houses for a while and see if we like it.’ And then – and this is my favourite part, Jack – she said, ‘It’s not really something we’re going to explain, Snow, because it’s an adult decision.’

I’ve got to tell you, Jack, writing all this down, I’m trying to remember how I felt. I suppose I was just numb because I can’t even really remember the point where Dad actually picked up the suitcase and walked out of the house, but it must have happened because at some point he was gone.

I jumped off Mum’s bed and went into my room and slammed the door, and all that was going through my head was the word divorce.

Like, divorce, divorce, divorce.

I must have just sat in my room thinking that for ages because after a while I realised it was dark outside and Mum hadn’t called me for tea, so I went into the kitchen and Mum was in there, practically in the dark, chopping this giant mountain of onions with the Staysharp knife that I wasn’t allowed to touch. Her nose was red and her eyes were running, so I said something smart like, ‘Why are you crying, Mum, if getting a divorce from Dad is such a good idea?’

I didn’t expect her to whirl around quite as fast as she did. She just spun round and threw the knife onto the floor so hard that it bounced up and landed on its point, and she said, ‘For God’s sake, Snow, we’re not getting a divorce!’ And she picked up the cutting board with the onions and everything on it and swept the whole lot into the bin.

I got such a shock I just ran back into my room, and I was crying and crying. I must have fallen asleep on my bed because the next thing I remember I woke up and I was cold and Mum was in my room, standing there with a plate of toast with honey on it. She had a soft voice for a change and she was saying, ‘Here, have this.’

I said, ‘What’s the time?’

She said, ‘It’s after midnight.’

Anyway, you know how you wake up sometimes and you can’t be sure whether or not you had a dream and then you remember you didn’t and everything’s real? That’s what it was like waking up the next day, going into the kitchen and finding my mother standing there, drinking her instant coffee and having her cigarette near the window like she wasn’t supposed to do because of my asthma. My place was set for Weet-Bix and the glass of orange juice was there again. I pulled back my chair and my mother must have heard me because she turned and I noticed she had drawn her lipstick around her mouth and it looked bad like a clown. She had a lot of eye make-up on too so she must have been crying all night and was trying to hide it.