‘What?’ All colour had gone from his face now. Even the few freckles left on his nose were pale, like washed-out stains.

‘ – unhappy.’

He released the duvet and let out a long breath.

‘Don’t do it again, Dad.’

‘Robert,’ I said. ‘I just want what’s best.’

‘What’s best,’ he repeated.

‘What’s best for you.’

Then he stood up. ‘I’m going out now,’ he said, heading for the door. ‘Luke hates it when I’m late.’

six: Joanna, November, 1985

six

Joanna

November, 1985

On Saturday Simon drives Mum and me to Wootton. ‘You should see the palace,’ he says. ‘We can call it a history lesson.’ Big wink. His leather gloves make a swooshing noise as he feeds the steering wheel round.

But when we get there, Mum wants to go round the shops. ‘I can’t stand all that history,’ she says. ‘Dead things in cases.’ She would never have admitted this a few months ago, when he first moved in with his leather-bound Reader’s Digest Complete History of the World collection.

Simon opens his mouth, but before he can start, I say, ‘We can still go. I like palaces and stuff.’

So he drops Mum off in the High Street, where I know she won’t buy anything because it’s all too expensive, and we roar off down the palace drive.

The sky’s bright blue and the house is surrounded by hills that Simon tells me are man-made, put there especially to show off the building. ‘That’s the wrong way round,’ I point out.

It’s so cold my lipstick goes hard and cracked within a minute of getting out of the car.

‘Are you going to buy me a souvenir?’

‘We haven’t even been round the grounds yet,’ says Simon. He’s wearing a new checked woolly scarf that Mum bought him. I can tell he doesn’t like it because he’s tucked it right inside his mac.

‘We could skip it. Go straight to the gift shop. You should at least buy me some chocolate, now we’re here.’

He flicks his stiffened fringe, gives me a look. Every morning I hear the long squirt of his hairspray. The laundry-fresh stench is still in the bathroom when I go to flannel my face. When he moved in, he promised us a shower. Shiny taps. Blasts of hot on demand. I was looking forward to soaping myself all over in the steam, arse pressed up against the wet glass. But no shower has ever appeared.

‘What’s your favourite?’ he asks. ‘For future reference.’

‘Bourneville.’

For some reason, he looks pleased. ‘The dark one. Good choice.’

We walk on in silence. Sheep shit is everywhere; dry balls and wet clumps of it splattered over the path and the grass. Some of it’s shaped like it’s been piped on a cake.

‘Want to know what mine is?’

‘What?’

‘Favourite.’

‘Let me guess,’ I say. ‘Yorkie?’