I should have known better. Sadie breathed the cigarette stench of rotting lungs all over me. ‘Caleb is an adult who has given his consent.’

‘My son has concussion and doesn’t know what he’s saying.’

‘That’s not true.’ Caleb’s tone was very low. He was learning to keep his temper.

‘Do you have a medical certificate about that concussion?’ Sadie asked me.

‘I don’t need one. I’m his mother.’

‘He’s an adult.’

‘I’m doing this, Mum,’ Caleb said. ‘Maybe you should wait outside.’

Sadie nodded. ‘Caleb needs to relax. Our machines will register nervousness as a lie. Or, Caleb, you could come to our studio.’ A spider, luring a fly.

I shook my head. ‘Talk to him here. I’ll wait in my room.’

Very soon after I closed my door, Stephen called to complain. ‘I’ve just heard a radio promo for In Australia Tonight. Caleb talked to Sadie Riley? You allowed this?’

‘I can’t stop him. Why don’t you try?’

‘I’m not there, Phoebe.’ Like I hadn’t noticed.

‘That was your choice.’

‘I’ll give it a go.’

Returning to the sitting room, I caught Caleb’s eye and mimed pulling out earbuds. When he’d followed, I passed him my phone. ‘It’s your father.’

Rolled eyes and silence. Caleb touched his pierced lip like he wished he could offend Stephen again by making him see it. He brushed past. ‘I’m busy getting ready for the show.’

By no rule or law or threat could I stop this. I had to watch the story on TV, later that evening, with everyone else. First, I had to wait.

But how to pass the time, how to get through this suspense? I still had Claire’s old things to organise in the garage intended as Caleb’s future studio. Old washing boards and irons you’d heat over an open fire, now rusty. An ancient bedhead attacked by wood borer. All the useless things that, absurdly, the fire had spared – an old leather trunk, an abacus covered in fine soot, a torn patchwork quilt, a mildewy teddy bear with only one eye. The first Brunton Wharton had been a blacksmith. Their family god, I thought uselessly, would have been Hephaestus, who made weapons.

Finally, I found something useful. A box in the cupboards contained old photographs Jeannie could use, and yellowed sketchbooks – Stephen’s from high school. He’d excelled at art; he excelled at everything. Maybe re-establishing Caleb’s relationship with his father was a way I could help him. If he realised they had something in common, he might feel less an outcast, excluded, like Grendel or Cain.

I took the sketchbook to his room. ‘You should look at this.’

At the mirror, he brushed black hair more firmly over his eyes. ‘All right, Mum. I’ll do that after the interview.’