She thought of Jack, who had moved out, and wondered if she should do the same, but she knew that she couldn’t do that to the children. They needed her and she needed them. She was stuck here, living next door to the woman who had seduced her husband. The question was, did she let Alan stay or did she kick him out? It was the hardest decision she had ever made in her life. And as she tried to work out what to do, she started sobbing. She cried for all the things she’d thought she had, just a few days ago, and everything she had lost since. Because whatever happened next, she knew one thing for sure; her life was never going to be the same again.

21

Ten Years Later

Katie Brennan tapped her foot impatiently on the vinyl floor and peered round the long line of people in front of her waiting for their recommended student vaccinations. She was itching to leave so that she could go and explore but judging by the excruciatingly slow speed the queue was moving at, she suspected she was in for a long wait. The sports hall was packed with other freshers, all eager to get on with navigating their way around campus, making new friends and arranging nights out. She smiled self-consciously as she caught the eye of a boy in the queue next to her. He smiled back. They both shuffled forward a couple of steps.

‘Looks like we’re in for a long wait,’ he said.

She nodded in agreement. She’d arrived at university two days ago. Her parents had dropped her off and lingered for too long, fussing around her as she unpacked, finding excuses to stay. She had eventually told them, kindly but firmly, that it was time for them to leave. Even then, they had been reluctant to prise themselves away, clinging on to her tightly as they hugged her goodbye. She was the baby of the family and she wasn’t sure that they’d ever be ready to let her go.

‘We’re so proud of you, Kitty Kat,’ her dad had said. ‘Who’d have thought, a Brennan at Oxford University?’

She had wanted to go to Oxford ever since she had read and later watched His Dark Materials. She had been bewitched by the idea of the magical city so steeped in history, with its long list of extraordinary alumni who had changed the world in so many different ways. When she finally saw it in person, after begging her mum to take her for a day trip, she hadn’t been disappointed. It was just as special as she’d built it up to be in her mind. She vowed there and then that she would earn her place at the prestigious university.

She had always been a good student. Her schoolmates called her a swot although never maliciously. She was popular enough not to attract the attention of bullies, and her brother, Tom, was a heart-throb so it was in the other girls’ interests to be nice to her. But even so, she had known that getting into Oxford was a push. So, while her friends went to parties or spent hours on social media, she studied. She was only satisfied if she achieved the top marks in her class, which she usually did. She got the highest grades in the year in her GCSEs, much to her parents’ pride, and she tackled her A-levels with the same determination. She threw herself into as many extracurricular activities as she could manage so that she’d have plenty to write about on her application. She spent hours preparing for her interview, practising her answers over and over again until she was even dreaming about it. She would wake up in a cold sweat, terrified that she’d blown it, before she came to and realised that it hadn’t even happened yet.