‘Stop saying that!’ I said too sharply. ‘You keep saying “it’s just a”. It’s just a cup of tea, it’s just a mug, it’s just a drink. And anyway, it’s not just a drink, it’s scampi too. He said you’re going for scampi!’

Her face fell and a wave of guilt washed over me. I didn’t want to make her sad.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘I’ll only be an hour or two. You watch Dallas with Granfer. Like you planned. You don’t need me. I’d only be doing the ironing anyway and I’m not in the mood to do it tonight. I was looking forward to a night off. Is that okay?’

She blurred in my tears and I managed a nod.

‘He’s a good friend.’ She looked as if she might say something else but if she was intending to she stopped herself. She squeezed my arm and smiled with a gratitude that made my knees crumple. I wished I could press a rewind button and take back the things I’d said.

‘I hope the scampi is nice.’

Then she left me in the hallway and walked back into the kitchen, and in a bright voice I could tell she’d manufactured said, ‘Come on, Gareth Spence, let’s paint this sleepy little town red.’

I didn’t want to be in the hall when Gareth came out of the kitchen, so I ran up the stairs, then knelt at the top to watch them through the banister. He took her coat off the hook in the hallway and held it up for her to put on. Then he opened the door and gestured for her to walk out in front of him. When his hand went to rest in the small of her back, I flinched as if it were me he’d touched.

Granfer must have been downstairs already as the television burst into life. The Dallas theme tune swam up the stairs, but rather than draw me down, it drove me into my box. I closed the door and the music dimmed to a gentle thrum through the floorboards.

I dragged the Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume III and Complete Book of Birds of the British Isles from the crate beneath my bed, and took the daisy I’d picked from between the paving stones at The Cliff House out of my pocket. I twirled it between my fingers so it turned like a ballerina. Though it was wilted, and the petals were limp, the spongey yellow centre was still radiant.