Answering with a small nod, Holly dropped her gaze and gave the unappetising sludge another stir. She was upset, wondering what was going on with him and Karla. The arguments they’d been having lately were loud, the silences in between louder. Jason felt his heart ache for Holly and Josh, both. They didn’t want him to make breakfast tomorrow – or any day, for that matter. They wanted their mother doing what she always had, being her efficient self, feeding them edible food. Karla was the epitome of organisation, or she had been. Jason had tried, but more often than not he failed, setting off with the kids for school minus their lunchboxes, forgetting half the stuff on the shopping list. They didn’t need him; they needed Karla, joking with them or chivvying them on when they dawdled, issuing threats if they didn’t ‘get their skates on’, threats they knew she wouldn’t carry out. Their children wanted familiarity, normality. With Karla lying in bed, recovering from another hangover, they were about as far from that as it was possible to get. He’d begged her not to go out.

‘Tell me you’re not leaving me, and I won’t,’ she’d said, her tone weary with exhaustion, her eyes… haunted.

Jason hadn’t. He couldn’t. ‘I’ll stay for a while,’ he’d said uselessly instead.

Karla smiled; a smile filled with such defeat and such soul-crushing sadness, he’d almost blurted out there and then why he couldn’t. What would that have done to her?

‘Sorry, tiger.’ Swallowing back his guilt, Jason offered Josh an apology for his failed porridge. ‘Fancy some toast instead?’

‘Coco Pops. I’ll get them,’ Josh said, sliding off his chair with a world-weary sigh and heading for the cupboard.

‘Cheers, Josh.’ Jason went to grab a cloth to clear the mess from the floor. ‘Can you leave a drop of milk in the carton for Mum?’ he asked him. ‘She’ll be thirsty.’

Dehydrated, no doubt. It had gone three o’clock when she’d arrived home last night – or rather, this morning. They didn’t share the same bed any more, but Jason hadn’t been asleep. He’d come through from the spare room to see what was happening after he’d heard the front door open, followed by a crash in the hall. ‘Karla, everything all right?’ he’d called down, concerned when he saw that she was unsteady on her feet.

‘Fine,’ she’d said, precariously repositioning the upturned statue on the hall table and retrieving one of her boots from the floor. ‘Couldn’t be better. Been nightclubbing.’

Waving the boot vaguely around, she’d then attempted to tiptoe up the stairs, almost falling up them as she did. Worried she was going to stumble backwards down them when she wobbled at the top, Jason had gone to try to help her.