‘Then I met someone,’ his father went on doggedly, ‘fell properly in love, but there was no question of leaving. Your mother couldn’t have borne it. I was trapped, and it made me cruel. I am sorry, okay, boy? Sorry.’ He had been speaking with mounting vehemence, leaning further and further out of the chair, twisting to keep Lucas’s full attention. ‘But I lost everything, can you see that? Everything.’ He fell back into the chair, as if exhausted. ‘I paid the price.’

‘No, Dad, I paid the price,’ Lucas had whispered, already at the door, his fingers round the handle. He would not say the word ‘goodbye’. Good riddance would have been closer to the mark.

When the car started to slide backwards, it was Dylan who hollered the loudest, breaking into a cumbersome, skidding run up the hill. Within moments, it spun sideways and backwards, ending up at an angle, its rear wheels buried in a roadside ditch, rendered invisible by snow.

‘We’ll call the farmer – get a tow from a tractor,’ Lucas cried, having overtaken Dylan and reaching Esther first. She was fine, she said, ignoring his outstretched arm as she clambered out. Lucas backed away, catching a glimpse of his face in the side mirror in the same instant, streaming with sweat and melting snowflakes, his eyebrows frosty crags. He looked a hundred years old. Like his father. Like father, like son. The same path, the same fate. Life was just about getting stuck on a carousel after all – you thought you’d got off when you hadn’t. He would end alone and bitter, with coat-hanger shoulders in old darned sweaters, and a secret stash of whisky to numb the pain… a pain that included the new, deeper knowledge of his mother, sick as well as sad, too fragile to brave the world on her own.

Lucas put a hand to his mouth to stifle a sob. There was Heidi, he reminded himself. The thought of her lit up his mind like a flare. He was still capable of love. During the course of the final services stop that morning, he had sent another desperate text to Germany, begging to be taken back. There had been no reply. Not even a brusque one. But there was hope. Being able to rescue Dylan proved it. There was always hope.

‘No, Lucas. We are not going to call a farmer, or anyone else,’ Esther was telling him, raising her voice against the swirling snow, already pinging open the boot and reaching in for the bags. ‘We’ll carry what we need to the house.’

‘Esther… we can’t. I can’t.’ Lucas stood, blinking and helpless. Somewhere, in the corner of his eye, he was aware of Dylan moulding snowballs and lobbing them at Lily, making her squeal.