Ross looks furious and, though I can’t deny I’m disappointed, too—I was looking forward to us getting back to normal—I’m taken aback by his rudeness.

“Of course you can stay. It’s no problem at all, is it, Ross?”

At last, he takes heed of the look in my eyes and softens a little.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” he says.

Catherine clasps her hands together at her chest in a gesture of thanks. “I’m so sorry to impose on you like this. I really am. Are you sure it’s all right?” She’s looking directly at Ross now.

He shrugs. “Yeah, whatever.” I wince at his choice of words. He can be so insensitive sometimes.

“So,” Catherine says. “What are you two lovebirds doing to celebrate tonight, then?”

Ross screws up the wrapping paper and stuffs it into the recycling bin. The muscles in his face tighten. “We’re going out.”

I give him a sharp look. What the hell is wrong with him?

“Anywhere nice?” she says. I can’t understand why she’s persevering with him when he’s clearly in a mood. Why doesn’t she just ask me, or drop the subject altogether? It’s almost as if…almost as if she’s enjoying his discomfort. As if she’s deliberately goading him.

She walks to the fridge and removes the carton of orange juice, pours herself a large glass. I feel a twist of irritation in my stomach. I’ve told her to help herself to whatever she needs, and I meant it, but there’s something not quite right about her today. An air of entitlement that grates on me. What’s that old saying? Guests, like fish, start to smell after three days, and it’s been almost a fortnight now.

“You’ll have to ask Lizzie,” Ross snaps. “It’s a surprise.”

It was a mistake from the start: the whole fucking charade. Catherine made it seem so easy, though.

“Get close to her,” she’d said. “I mean, really close. Make her open up and tell you the truth. She pushed Alice in front of that train, Ross. I know she did. She told Alice she wished she was dead. Alice was in tears when she came back from that disco. Then the sly bitch pretended to have a seizure so the two of them could bunk off a school trip. If she could pretend once, she could pretend twice. And if she won’t talk, go ahead and break her heart anyway. Why should she get to be happy?”

God, how she hated her.