Her mother had carved him, over time, until he was misshapen. But someone should have helped him. Someone should. It should have been Bea. She thought of him, going to his room after that supper that night, and finding his help online. She had to hope for him. She tried to. But fear was bigger. She didn’t know what chance there was that he could save himself.

She imagined waking Dan and telling him. She would probably cry. He would be shocked and disgusted and comfort her. Maybe that would make it worth it. She might feel innocent. Feel innocent and let herself be helped. But she reminded herself it wasn’t her damage. It was not she who had been abused – not in that way. It wasn’t hers to indulge and suffer over. Liv’s motherly crimes against her were vicious, but they were of the common kind. Cruelty was never nice, but it was in the past, and finished, and she’d got over it. She almost had. She was fine. She didn’t need looking after. She thought of all the people in the world who did. Almost anyone she could think of needed looking after more than she did. She didn’t deserve it.

8

They had breakfast all together in the dining room; Alex running to and from the kitchen, fetching his special scorched croissants and pots of jam. Liv had only green tea. Griff asked for fruit but then didn’t like it when it came. He had a small pot of plain yogurt, digging at it as though there were something at the bottom he wanted. In the afternoon the sky lowered over the trees and it began to rain. Griff summoned Bea to speak to him.

‘Will you be all right?’ said Dan.

‘Of course.’

Her father was waiting for her in the bigger of the two sitting rooms, at the far end of the hotel. Alex was at the reception desk. She didn’t know where her mother was. She went through the smaller room and past the bare tables in the dining room, and opened the door. Griff was scanning the few pieces of shabby furniture and threadbare rugs as she came in.

‘This place is a shithole,’ he said. ‘I’d have thought Alex would want to make something of it.’

‘I think he does. This is the worst room. Why are we in here?’

‘It’s the biggest.’

She sat at one end of the sofa, with her limbs tucked in, as if she were on a fairground ride in danger of injury. He went to the door.

‘Alex!’

In a few moments, Alex appeared.

‘A Campari, when you’ve got a moment, yes?’

‘Sure. Bea?’

‘No, thanks, I’m good.’

‘I’ll put a girdle round the Earth in forty minutes,’ said Alex.

‘Sooner than that, I hope,’ said Griff and shut the door.

He jangled his keys in the loose linen of his pocket. Bea switched on the lamp next to her as the rain pattered down outside.