4) Ness says to Leah, I think you better calm down before you say things you might regret.

5) Leah says to Ness, Stop being so fuking patronizing.

6) Ness says to Leah, You can be quite a kleeshay yourself, Leah. (Polly and I dont know what a kleeshay is and it is not in the dictionary so it is probably rude.)

7) Leah says to Ness, Your so passive aggressive. (Which Polly said means sometimes you want sex and sometimes you dont.)

Then I dropped my tube of gobstoppers down the wooden stairs and Ness came out and said hello girls perhaps its time you went home, Annie. I said no I didn’t have to but Leah said I did. When I went home, Granny and Grampa were in the kitchen and Granny said hadnt I grown and was I still good at maths. I said I havent grown since yesterday and I am as good at maths since yesterday. I sat on Grampas lap and gave him some starbursts. He likes the orange ones best. Mum said to Grampa have you seen Doctor Timmins? And Grampa said I did what up the chimney? And Granny said oh yes we must get it cleaned. Mum and Dad were laughing so much I knew they werent getting devorced. Phewyyy!!

I feel sad reading this. I shut the diary and look out of the window for a while. It’s a grey lifeless day, with a smothering dark blanket of a sky. Oh, Annie. There is nothing worse than your child’s unhappiness. I don’t mean when they’ve lost a soccer game or hurt their knee, I mean real unhappiness with a damn good reason: a death, or discovering that their parents might be splitting up – which is just another kind of death. He was so angry; I hadn’t anticipated that. I hadn’t anticipated any of it; each blow seemed to take us all by surprise. A family in peril, hanging by a thread until it snaps and we’re all tossed into freefall, landing randomly with different breakages. Josh’s pain turned to fury at us. And rightly so: we were destroying the safety of his world. We, his parents, his protectors, were consciously choosing to hurt them: we were the cause of their unhappiness. How unnatural and perverse it is to do this to one’s own kids. But how far are we meant to go for our children, how much can we take? I told him I felt so guilty. Guilt? he said. What’s the point of guilt? It’s just you telling me that you’re a nice person.