Just got on the train. Your parents arrived yet? xxx

She slipped it quickly back into her pocket as she caught sight of her parents. Her mum’s face lit up when she saw her. ‘Oh, Katie, look at you, you’re so grown up!’

‘Mum!’ Katie protested, laughing. ‘You only saw me two weeks ago.’

‘I know but it feels like forever.’

Katie kissed her mum and then stood back and looked at her dad. He looked like he’d aged about ten years in three months. He stood awkwardly, unsure about whether he was allowed to hug her or not. They had spoken on the phone a few times – stilted conversations at first, which gradually eased into their normal patter as time progressed – but although her mum had visited several times, she hadn’t seen him since she left home. Watching him now, looking so nervous and indecisive, broke her heart and she threw her arms around him.

‘Hi, Dad.’

‘Hi, Kitty Kat.’

‘Come on, Alan, help Katie with her bags,’ her mum said, fussing. He took them off her and threw them easily over his shoulders and they made their way to where the car was parked.

‘Tom’s getting in at five,’ Sophie explained. ‘He’s already made plans to go out tonight but I’ve told him we’re having a family dinner first whether he likes it or not. What about you? Any plans to see your old friends?’

Katie didn’t want to admit that she’d barely spoken to any of her school friends, that she’d been too absorbed in her new life to even think about her old ones. ‘Not tonight, but I’m sure I’ll catch up with them at some point over the holidays.’

In the car on the way home, her mum chattered away constantly, trying to fill any awkward silences between father and daughter. Her dad, as always, said very little but chimed in every so often with an anecdote or two. Katie looked out of the window at the countryside rushing past and thought about Freddy. She wondered if his train had arrived in London yet and who would be there to greet him. She pictured him returning to Pemberton Road, the street where she had spent the first eight years of her life, of him walking past her old house and thinking of her. She thought about the prospect of telling her parents about him and felt nauseous. And, more than anything, she thought about how soon she could be with him again.

Indie climbed out of the taxi in Pemberton Road and stood outside her mum’s house. She glanced briefly at the house next door before quickly looking away, and then she took a deep breath, walked up the steps and let herself in through the front door.

‘Hi, honey, I’m home!’ she yelled, slamming the door closed with a satisfactory bang.

‘Indie?’ Her mum appeared from the kitchen, tea towel in hand. ‘Indie! My goodness! What are you doing here? I thought you were going to Singapore?’