“I don’t know about you,” said Tom, “but I could do with some breakfast.”

I turned to him and caught sight of my own reflection, distorted by the curve of the car door: bulging forehead, squinting eyes, tapering legs.

“Breakfast,” I echoed. Tom checked his watch, and the pale flash of his wrist broke my trance. I looked at him—I mean, I really saw him—for the first time that day. His eyes were a scrawl of fine red lines, and his skin was ashen. I pictured him driving through the night at my father’s behest—because Tom drove, and Dad didn’t, and that’s what friends are for. Five hours at the wheel, fending off secondhand fag fumes and secondhand angst, and all the time, at the back of his mind, our conversation the other night, and the words of that awful review in yesterday’s London Globe. What was it Dad had written? Something about clever-clever catalogue notes and waffle, and that phrase “overthought and overwrought” in the closing paragraph.

“I’m buying breakfast,” I said, although it wasn’t much of a gesture. “I’ll just fetch my purse, I’ll be one minute—”

“No!”

I stopped dead.

“Sorry,” said Tom. “But please don’t go back into that house. It doesn’t matter who pays.”

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and frowned.

“If you go inside now, you’ll never get away. I know what will happen. You’ll run into your dad and what’s-his-name . . .”

“Cory.”

“Yes. And we’ll end up staying here for breakfast . . .”

“And?”

Tom reddened. “It would be good to talk to you, on your own.”

Sounds ominous. I would have said it out loud in normal circumstances—in a lighthearted way—but not now.

I hung about while Tom scribbled a note for Dad and stuck it under the windscreen wiper. We set off down the drive toward Bligh, and I only looked over my shoulder a couple of times. The lawn was empty and, as far as I could tell, the house had all its eyes shut.

We plumped for the first café we saw. It was called Jeanette’s and there was a tinkly bell above the door, which made everyone—the four customers and a waitress—look up when we entered. Tom sat with his back to the window, and I sat opposite with the sun in my eyes. The light was bouncing off the water in the harbour, so pure and sprightly that everything else seemed squalid by comparison. The air inside the café was thick with dust, and there were toast crumbs in the sugar pot and greasy little handprints on the window. The room was too small for the number of tables, and the whole place smelled of vegetable oil and frying.

“What are you having?” Tom sighed, rubbing his face, as I unstuck my elbows from the plastic tablecloth and reached for a menu. The cloth was decorated with pink ice-cream cones and cartoon seagulls with goofy eyes, and it seemed strange to me. Everything seemed strange and hyperreal. I kept blinking as if I’d just left the theatre; as if I’d emerged from a startling play and come back to earth with a bump.