Gavin and his mates had driven him into hiding and he couldn’t bear it any longer. He turned and ran out of the room, down the stairs, stopping only to put on his trainers, and out into the darkness. He didn’t tell his parents where he was going, and he knew he would pay for it later, but for now he just needed to get out, to be anywhere but home. He jumped on his bike and pedalled.

The cold night air bit into him without his coat but he didn’t care. He didn’t even put on his bike lights. He cycled for twenty minutes, feeling the wind on his chest and face, cleansing his thoughts and when he finally stopped, he found himself outside Claire’s house, a figure hidden amongst the darkness. He looked up at it in awe – it was far grander than he had imagined.

Through the elaborate bars of the wrought-iron gates, Paul saw a three-storey detached home where the golden lights from some of the windows allowed him a peek into Claire’s world. Downstairs, he could see what he guessed to be the living room and her parents and Claire sat watching television. Paul slipped through the gates and crept up the driveway to get a closer look. Hiding behind a bush, he could see her mum was sat in a chair while her dad and Claire were stretched out on the sofa.

The sheer normality of it made him ache. His family were rarely in the same room together, even at mealtimes. Paul and his mum ate their evening meal together around five o’clock while his dad ate when he came home from work around half past six and, for as long as Paul could remember, his father didn’t like to be disturbed during that time. His mum hovered around her husband, eager to anticipate anything he might need, before she, too, was banished to go and do something useful.

It was only when his dad sat down in his chair with his cigarette and the remote control that the whole house seemed to heave a sigh of relief. This was the least dangerous time when his dad was unlikely to erupt, and Paul and his mum could quietly go about their business. His mum often sat at the kitchen table reading her magazines, old copies that she quietly slipped into her handbag when in the doctors’ waiting room or from the hair salon where she got her ends trimmed every two months. Paul would sometimes sit at the table with her doing his homework but usually he would go up to his room and splay himself and his books across the bed, lost in a world of calculations and revisions.