So young, I think, and what was she, an actress, a TV presenter? Why on earth would she jump under a train? I feel so sad for her that I have to come off my phone. I’ll watch a film. I look across at Dad, in his chair. Will he watch with me? He sometimes does. I note that he needs a shave, but I know he’ll do it in the morning. He is fastidious; always clean-shaven, and what hair he has left is kept neat monthly by the mobile barber who comes. Standards never slip when it comes to my father. Although he can’t witness his own appearance, he never forgets others can, even if it’s just me. It may be the Italian in him.

I find The Talented Mr Ripley on Amazon and start watching it on my own as Dad says he doesn’t fancy it. It’s hardly a cheery movie, but I love it, and I enjoy gazing at everyone’s gorgeous outfits. Dad has his headphones on and is listening to an audiobook. Now and again he’ll laugh, a sound only elicited by the voices of strangers. The light fades. We have a snack, a glass of beer.

‘Well, I think I’ll turn in, Prue,’ says Dad, at just gone eleven.

‘Me too, Dad,’ I reply.

He rises from his chair and I rise from mine. I wait while he uses the bathroom then I go and brush my teeth and wash my face and gently dab Savlon on my left cheek. I know it won’t do anything. I know when I look in the mirror in the morning my birthmark will still be there, loud and proud, but hey, sometimes people are really, relentlessly stupid.

I get into bed, place my phone on the floor to charge, and lie there with the lamp on for a few minutes. I can hear Dad bumbling round his bedroom: opening and closing drawers, getting into bed with a creak of his bedframe and setting his morning alarm on the iPad, like he always does – with the help of Siri – despite there being nothing to get up for. After I hear Dad turn his light off, I turn off mine.

CHAPTER 4

My sister often forgets the time difference and calls us in the middle of the night.

‘Prue?’

‘Ug?’

‘It’s Angela.’

Angela has a Canadian inflection to her voice now. It’s super-annoying. I prefer it when people who run away keep their original accents.

‘It’s two in the morning,’ I say, leaning over and noting the time on my mobile phone.

‘Sorry.’

I know she is not sorry. She’s the kind of person who does what she feels like, when she feels like it.