Lucas spun round and jerked a corner of the duvet, far enough to reveal a fuller picture of his son, spreadeagled on his front. ‘Tell me, Dylan, how does smoking weed fit in with your professed desire to save money? Quite apart from damaging your brain – which, I would humbly suggest, needs all the help it can get right now; not to mention the minor detail of breaking the bloody law. Jesus, Dylan, I am not naïve but I had dared, given past experiences, to expect better from you.’ The bedding, bed, and its occupant remained quite still. So still indeed that, for one heart-stopping beat, it even occurred to Lucas to wonder if he could be glaring at a corpse. This momentary terror, when his son deigned to stir at last, shifting so that he was sitting upright, insolently, or so it seemed to his father, see-sawed into an anger so intense that Lucas had to clench his fists to contain it.

‘A friend gave it to me,’ Dylan mumbled, shoving at the flop of his hair.

‘Oh, well, that’s absolutely fine, then. Hooray. No problemo.’ Lucas unfurled his hands, running them over his face in a bid to compose himself. It didn’t help that his own day had begun so exquisitely, waking in the misty dawn light to the tickle of Heidi’s long hair on his face. Spending the night at hers had never been the plan. But when Dylan, sullen with his exam catastrophe, had retreated into his room for the evening, Lucas had not been able to resist the chance to see his lover, stealing out of the flat like a thief.

‘I know it’s breaking all our rules,’ he had admitted, the moment Heidi opened the door, summoned by his pleading text from the street, ‘but I need you. Need. Do you understand? There are things I have to say, things you must hear.’ Instead of the scolding, pragmatic response he had half feared, she had stepped into his arms. ‘Liebchen,’ she had whispered, her breath warm in his ear, ‘I need you too.’

‘Look, I don’t want to make a big deal of it, okay?’ Lucas told Dylan more gently, removing the spliff from the window ledge and holding it behind his back. ‘It’s gone nine, time to get your act together. You must look smart. It is an important day for your sister.’

‘Well, thank you for the reminder, Father.’

Lucas bristled, but reined himself in. ‘What do you have to wear anyway? Anything?’ He picked his way through the mess to the wardrobe, widening the already half-open door. An old baseball cap dangled from a hook at the back. On the rail, a crumpled, collarless shirt hung half off a hanger. Next to it a pair of tracksuit bottoms dangled from their waist-tie. ‘You’ll have to borrow something of mine.’

‘Get out of my grill, Dad.’