There. The day might be saved after all. And maybe she could pick up something nice for her mum in town too, by way of making amends. She wandered into the bathroom, feeling a tiny bit more positive about the world, just as Sam said, ‘Oh – wait, though.’

‘What?’

‘I just remembered: Dad said he wanted to see that film as well,’ he replied. ‘Should we wait until he’s back before we go?’

‘When will he be back anyway?’ Daisy asked in the next breath.

And there it was again, the rising tide of uncertainty that kept threatening to pull her under. She gritted her teeth, wondering how long she could keep fobbing them off with vague answers. ‘Let’s go and see the film anyway,’ she replied eventually, then turned back with another smile, hoping it wasn’t too obviously fake. ‘And then if he—When he’s back, if he still wants to see it, we can all go again!’

‘YES!’ cried Daisy, punching the air exuberantly, although Sam looked less convinced by her answer. He narrowed his eyes a little, looking straight at Robyn with a frown of doubt. He wasn’t buying it, she thought in panic. He knew something was going on. And sooner or later he was going to seek her out, alone, and ask some blunt questions, to which she’d have to provide some honest answers without completely breaking his heart.

But not right now. Not while she was unwashed and smarting, after the exchange with her mum, not when she hadn’t prepared how to tell him. She escaped into the bathroom and turned on the shower, knowing that it was only a matter of time.

Bunny had taken to looking at maps recently. Wales. Cornwall. The Highlands. She scrolled through them on her phone screen, zooming in to city centres and around towns, thinking: This one? Here? Maybe that one? while waiting for some impulse within her to ring like a struck bell. Hoping for a signal – a premonition, a good feeling, anything – that would guide her next move. She’d even considered London, with its warren of roads and districts and communities. Everyone could have a fresh start in London, right?

It wasn’t working out for her in York any more, that was for sure. Ever since the horrible, shouting man in Gloucestershire, she’d felt as if she was on borrowed time. She was hiding behind her lies, hiding behind Dave, using whatever she could find as a shield to protect herself. It made her think of history lessons at school: imagining wooden fortresses in old battles, the boom of gunpowder, the clamour of dying men. And there she was, crouching behind her increasingly flimsy shield, the hot, thick stink of sulphur and mud and metal in the air; too scared to let anyone see her real self.