“What on earth do you mean a waste. How can a world-class education be a waste?” Dad shouted the words. Beth winced and with great effort, he reeled it in. “Is this about Ruby? Just because she’s not going to university doesn’t mean you can sit around here and do nothing. I swear, Saoirse, if you don’t go you are not staying here. End of story,” Dad said.

“Believe me, I don’t want to live with you one second longer than I have to.” I spat the words out, hoping for maximum hurt. He was incapable of listening to reason. I should have known better. “I want to be close to Mum.”

“Hold on now, Rob.” Beth cut across Dad before he could speak. “Of course you can stay here, Saoirse, this is your home. We can talk about this.”

Dad opened his mouth and I thought he was going to give off to Beth, but she gave him a look that would silence an angry mob. “Don’t even think about it,” she said. “This is my home too.”

“So you want to enable her to waste her life?” Then he turned on me. “Go see what it’s like to try and get a decent job without a degree.”

“You don’t have a degree,” Beth snapped at him.

“It’s different now. You want to throw all your hard work away because your girlfriend is a slacker? I’m not going to finance that.”

Beth looked like she was going to argue, but I got there first.

“No one asked you to finance anything. I can get a job.” I doubted that would be easy in this economy actually. I hadn’t been able to get a job over the summer. Not one of the jobs I applied for called me for interview. Our little seaside economy wasn’t exactly busting with well-paying, no-qualification jobs, and commuters to the city had pushed rents up so much I didn’t think I’d actually ever be able to live in the town I grew up in. Unless I bumped off Dad and Beth and inherited the flat. Tempting but messy. But I would work it out, right? If I had to.

“Ruby isn’t going to university yet because she’s staying home to help her family. I know you can’t imagine sacrificing anything to care for someone, but she’s not like that.”

Dad closed his eyes and his lips thinned, but he didn’t say anything.

“And anyway, it’s got nothing to do with her. We broke up, remember?” I added, knowing Beth had told him, even though he hadn’t had the guts to broach the subject with me.

“Well, what the hell is it about, then?” Dad said, his fury and bluster deflated.