Dad didn’t say anything else. He just sat with us and stared out at the water. In a way, I thought that was okay because he was being honest about the terribleness. But I also wanted him to say things to make it all right. This silent Dad was part of the huge bubble of misery that was getting bigger and bigger in my chest.

After a few minutes that felt like days, Dad said, ‘Come on, you three. Let’s go and get an ice-cream.’

Ruthy said, ‘I don’t want one, Dad.’ But he stood up and gently pulled her to her feet, and Caleb and I followed. We all walked silently to the shop. Dad said we could have any ice-cream we wanted. Caleb was still hiccupping, and my eyes were still raining on my cheeks. Ruthy had her little pouty face going on. The woman in the shop had purple hair. I thought, Mum would never agree to dye someone’s hair that colour. I wondered if Mum would take Orlay’s Audrey Auburn hair colour with her to Scotland. What if they don’t have Audrey Auburn there? What if she comes home with different-coloured hair? Would she go black? Or blond? Would she look the same?

‘They can get overtired on outings, can’t they?’ said the purple-headed serving lady. I noticed her roots were very grey for a good half an inch around the line of her face. I also noticed she was wearing an orange jumper. Mum would have said, ‘What are you thinking wearing purple with orange?’

Dad just nodded and handed her some money.

‘I make mine have a lie-down before I take them out,’ she said. ‘About your ones’ ages I’d say.’ She leaned into the freezer and pulled out our ice-creams. ‘Oh, they don’t like it, of course. But I say, no lie-down, no treat. I’d try that, a lie-down before you leave. We see a lot of tired crying and tantrums here. I always recommend the lie-down.’

Dad just nodded again.

When we pulled into the driveway Caleb said, ‘Dad, will Mum be inside?’ and Dad said, ‘No, Caleb. Your mum has gone to Scotland.’ We all walked to the back door because it wasn’t a running kind of event. There was no one in the kitchen. The house was quiet and empty. It didn’t feel right that everything looked the same, when nothing was really the same. Dad told us to put our things away. We went into our bedrooms, and then we all started to cry again, because Mum had packed a suitcase for each of us and put it on our beds.

‘But, Dad,’ howled Ruthy, ‘we don’t have to go right now, do we? Can’t we stay with you, Dad? We will be really good and we can do the cooking and cleaning and Dorcas can look after us until you get home from work and we can get Mr Driver if there are snakes or spiders or robbers.’ She was pleading.