How hard I’d tried not to dissolve in front of them all the time these past few years. It had always been hard; it hadn’t always been the right thing to do, I suspected. Sometimes I let myself go over Long Lost Family, or an old weepie, and it felt like a small relief to do so in front of them, but I wanted them to know I was holding it together, that although the loss of their father devastated me, I was still coping.

I was scared that if I crumbled, so would they. So I cried privately, at night in the shower, in my bedroom, when they slept.

‘It’s OK, Mum.’ Ali seemed so grown-up, far, far away on the end of a foreign line. ‘I’ll get the first train back.’

‘I’ll pay for your flight, lovie.’

‘Train’s good, Mum.’ My little eco-warrior.

I really wanted her to come home, I realised.

But once I’d put the phone down, I felt lost.

Zach had gone back to bed after I’d made him eat something. He said he still felt ‘weird’, and a bit sick, and my heart sank at the memory of the suggestion of the drugs.

Could he – would he – be so stupid?

I remembered the camping trip, the hash brownies. Was I just the world’s most naive mother? It wasn’t out of the bounds of possibility.

I sat alone in the dark and I thought, The person I’d normally turn to now is – what? My enemy? Or just completely cut off from me.

I didn’t think I could ring her again – what if it was seen as ‘coercion’? Intimidating a witness?

But we didn’t even know if Cecilia was alleging what Willow had reported.

We’d entered a horrible limbo: just waiting, sitting ducks, lined up to see what the fates would bring.

I went to bed and did something I hadn’t done since my mum used to take me to Sunday school aged eight and leave me with the fat nun with the warty mole.

I prayed.

Ruby

MONDAY 2 OCTOBER

After Zach had left this morning, I hadn’t gone to open up the flower stall. I didn’t even bother to call Diane to do it for me.

I just couldn’t care right now.

Instead, I walked up Portobello Road to Notting Hill Gate, through the American tourists, past the fruit and veg, the bric-a-brac, the bright nylon pants stalls; past the higgledy-piggledy antique shops on the incline up, heaving with misty ‘Stags in the Glen’ and brass candlesticks.

How long before these little shops were all replaced with expensive and deadly franchises?

My legs felt heavy, my movements strange: like a spaceman stepping into unknown gravity, trying to find a foothold.

I arrived at the gym around 9 a.m.

Did I know what I was going to say? Did I feel clear-headed?

No.

In the lobby, I checked the schedule on the board. The receptionist, scrub-faced and neat, was super smiley – right up till the moment she realised I wasn’t a member of the place.