Nick scrambles up and barges into Douglas, locking arms with him, but Douglas, although leaner, is muscular, and he pushes Nick into the conservatory, where they crash against the table. It scrapes along the quarry-tiled floor and a jam jar of paintbrushes falls and smashes. Anna screams as Douglas picks up a child’s wooden chair and sends it flying at Nick’s head. Nick raises his arm to deflect it, and Douglas charges him, crushing his fist into Nick’s diaphragm. Winded, Nick drops to the floor and rolls on to his hands and knees, sucking in desperate breaths. Douglas grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him up, then pushes him into the wall. The room is so small, they knock into furniture and pieces of painted driftwood fly from the dresser. One lands between them.

I Love My Dad.

Douglas kicks it out of the way, then picks it up and looks at Nick. ‘I’m applying for custody of my daughter. You can’t be trusted. Grace will leave you when she finds out what kind of man you really are.’

‘She won’t believe you,’ Nick gasps. ‘She loves me. We’re getting married.’

Douglas hesitates a second and then he laughs. ‘You poor bastard.’

Nick hadn’t realized until now how much he hates Douglas Parr, how visceral his loathing is, how much he wishes he would sod off out of Grace’s life. If it wasn’t for Lottie, he would have told him to get lost ages ago. As it is, he has to grit his teeth every time Douglas enters his house. He hates his arrogance, his smugness, his ego; but most of all he hates the effect he has on Grace. She tries to hide it, but he knows that she’s scared of his dark side, wary of annoying him.

This is all going wrong. He needs to talk to Anna on her own, to make her understand about the dreams, about the kiss coming from Izzy. He wants to explain that he does feel guilty; not about what happened in the cubbyhole, but about what happened beside the river; about Izzy screaming at him to go away, to leave her alone; about the way he shook his head, then turned his back on her, shoving his hands into his pockets and sloping off, back through the woods to the house. That was his guilt; not what she thought, or wanted to think, he had done. But he can’t explain all this while that man is here, maybe he can’t say it at all. Maybe he’ll never get to say it, because people will take it the wrong way. He needs to get out, go home, get to Grace before Douglas does.