He reaches for the sports bottle on the floor and takes a swig, grimacing as he swallows. Jake is almost the spitting image of his dad. Whilst Billy inherited my dark hair, Jake is fair like Mark with the same small eyes, prominent nose and thin lips. His is a masculine face; strong and angular with a wide expanse of forehead. Billy’s features are more refined. He has my large brown eyes, a smaller nose and fuller lips. Dad always used to go on about what a pretty boy he was when he was little. ‘Angelic,’ Mum called him. I’ve always been careful never to comment on the way my boys look – they’re both beautiful in my eyes – but the world isn’t so circumspect. I lost track of the number of times old ladies would nod at Jake, then gaze at Billy in the buggy and announce, ‘He’s going to be a right heartbreaker that one.’ The comparison wasn’t lost on Jake. ‘Why don’t me and Billy look the same?’ he’d ask when he was nine and Billy was five. ‘Arrogant bastard,’ he growled when Billy was twelve and the letterbox rattled with cards for Valentine’s Day; only one of them was for Jake (and that was from me).

Jake replaces the sports bottle on the floor and his gaze flickers towards me. ‘I’m just stressed, that’s all.’

‘About what?’

His pale blue eyes are unreadable. ‘Everything. Work, Kira, Dad, this house, Bill.’

‘Is that why you’ve started drinking again?’

‘What do you mean, again?’ he says but he knows what I mean. After Billy left I lost track of the times he’d stumble into the house at night, crashing into the kitchen table, swearing at the coat hooks as his hoody hit the floor, stumbling up the stairs and into bed with Kira. I confronted him about it but he said he wasn’t doing anything that other nineteen-year-olds didn’t do and if he went to work every day and he paid me my rent then what right did I have to hassle him about it?

What could I do? It was obviously his way of dealing with the loss of his brother. But I can’t stick my head in the sand any more. I can’t stand idly by as he destroys himself. We need to talk.

‘Jake, we need to discuss what happened on the day of the appeal. I know everyone’s been worried about me, but I can’t just forget about the fact that you were drinking at seven o’clock in the morning.’

He takes off his cap and runs a hand through his hair. ‘I just had a bit of a session, okay? We got back from the club at three and I kept drinking because I was pissed off.’

‘What about?’