“Well, if you use the landline, make sure you put it back, okay? I don’t want to be rummaging through all your girlie stuff.”

“Dad.” She was smiling now. “It’s not girlie stuff, it’s just make-up and clothes and… ”

“Don’t you say that word.” He was edging away from her desk as she edged towards it. “It’s bad enough having to buy them for you.”

“Real men aren’t scared of Tampax,” she called as he retreated.

“I can’t hear you,” he called back, putting the phone back on its base-station. Out of nowhere, a flash of memory: Ellen, bandana-shrouded and grimacing with nausea, asking him to pick up some sanitary towels. He’d been flattened by amazement that her cycle still functioned when so much else about her was broken – by the illness and by the treatment that was supposed to burn it out of her. How could her body possibly believe it was in any shape to nurture a new life? If she’d felt remotely like having sex, if they’d managed to get pregnant, if it had somehow withstood the poisonous cocktail poured in through the drugs port, what hideous monster would have been brought to birth nine months later? Why was all this rubbish coming back to him now? Was Ellen haunting him? Could she see into his head? Did she suspect him of forgetting her? Of wanting to betray her with… ? He leaned his head against the wall and tried to breathe.

“I’m going out.” Alicia was watching him. Her bag was slung over her shoulder.

“Where are you going?” To meet the mystery boy from her journal?

“Just out.”

“Yes, but where?”

“Dad! It’s half-term! Just you know, around!” Her temper flared so easily these days. The joys of having a teenager. “I might go for a walk across the sands. I’ll be out for lunch.”

“Will you?”

“If that’s all right, I mean.” He looked at her sternly. “Dad, is it all right if I stay out for lunch?” A pause. “Please?”

It was almost a relief to know she was only going to hang around that bloody beach hut. Maybe the Welfare Officer would come while she was there. Make her see that they were nothing more than a couple of charming freeloaders. “All right, then. Dinner at… ”

“Six, I know.”

“And you’ve definitely got phone credit?”

“Yes!” A quick, reluctant kiss at his jawline, her arms around him for a perfunctory second. “Bye.”

Once he was sure she’d gone, he went back and examined the clutter on her desk, being careful not to touch anything. As he’d half-expected, the journal was gone. That told him something important – in fact, two things. She didn’t want him to read it. And she didn’t trust him to keep his nose out. He was surprised to find he was hurt by this.

Of course, she really couldn’t trust him, but she didn’t know that. She’d never caught him looking. And besides, he wouldn’t say a word. She was entitled to the illusion of privacy. Who was it, though? Which boys’ names had she mentioned? None.