‘What?’ I felt the icy drench of something.

‘Like when you and Dad – like when you—’ She picked at the black varnish on her thumbnail. ‘When you – fight.’

‘Fight?’ I parroted. I felt as if she’d just poured a bucket of water over my head.

And what was this feeling – fear? Embarrassment? No.

Worse. It was degradation.

‘Melissa.’ Ceci shifted a little nearer. ‘I’m not stupid, you know.’

At least he hadn’t got my face this time. That had been an oversight on his behalf last week apparently.

‘Right,’ I agreed. ‘I mean, of course you’re not. You’re one of the cleverest people I know.’

Who else did I know who understood the tenets of socialism, or how Immanuel Kant decreed humanity should live worthy lives, or why genomes make – whatever it is they do make?

Not even Rex knew all that.

‘Thanks,’ Cecilia said mildly. ‘You’re pretty clever too.’

‘Er – no!’ I laughed, just relieved not to be talking about her father now. ‘I spent my lunch hours in the pub drinking cider and black, until the grand old age of fourteen, when I was so bright, I decided not to go back at all.’

‘Doesn’t mean you’re not clever though, does it?’ Another layer of her varnish pinged across Lynette’s glass coffee table.

‘Look, Ces, tell me to back off, but I just – I have a bad feeling about all of this. I mean obviously it is bad, very bad – if Zach did that to you, but I just…’ I grabbed her hands in mine. ‘I keep thinking, since you – you know, changed your mind – that something’s not quite right?’

‘I’m not a liar.’ She tried to pull her hand from mine – but she wouldn’t meet my eye.

‘No one said you were.’

‘Sounds like it.’

‘It’s just’ – I forced her to meet my gaze – ‘was it Willow round here earlier? I wonder how much she’s had to do with all this, Ces?’

‘Willow?’ She scowled. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, it was her who accused Zach before you – and I’m a bit confused.’

‘I know my own mind,’ she said, but her voice was shaky. ‘I’m not a total loser.’

‘I know that.’ And yet, I couldn’t help feeling Willow had got to Cecilia somehow. ‘But I want you to know you can confide in me, tell me anything.’

There was a very long pause, in which I began to feel a bit of hope.

‘But there’s nothing to confide.’ Cecilia stuck her chin in the air, and I thought, She reminds me of someone, and then I realised with a nasty thud – it was Willow.

When I left, standing in the tiny hallway by the old 1970s frosted glass front door, I looked at the silly sign on the wall that read Live Laugh Love and I said to Lynette, ‘You will look after her, won’t you?’

Lynette looked at me, and she didn’t ask.