Mum took him past the War Memorial, and the hotel where she said she and Dad once shared a single pot of beer because they were too poor for two, before Mum met Gran. Even in this weather there were tourists. They called it sight-seeing, but all they did was drink. Wine-tasting. That meant making pretentious comments about wine’s body and nose like… like it was a fucking girl.

That language came easily to Caleb, at least inside his head. It was much easier to think than to speak. Sometimes he would do neither, but just draw. A variety of things, back then: his response to Kafka’s Gregor metamorphosing into an insect or a cartoon wine-bottle that was half female, with curves in all the right places, as Dad would say. In and out again.

Mum wanted to go to BuyCheap first. Caleb stood outside, waiting for her. Ingrid, the checkout bitch, glared at him through the window when she thought Mum wasn’t watching.

‘Would you like a Mars bar?’ she’d asked five-year-old Caleb, visiting Gran, and he’d smiled, gap-toothed, young, stupid. ‘You’d better get your mother to pay for it, you little hooligan,’ she added under her breath as he bit in. Mum was furious with him for taking food without asking, and made him throw the rest out.

‘You know better than that,’ she’d announced in a loud voice, a performance for the town. ‘I’ve talked to you about stealing.’

Caleb had spat out the mouthful he’d been about to chew. It tasted bad anyway, flavoured with Ingrid’s smirk. Caramel had tasted vitriolic to Caleb ever since. He’d been taught about bullies at school but never met a child as malicious as a small-town gossip.

Outside, Ingrid emptied a wastepaper basket into the footpath bin. Heat radiated off the road in slow waves. Mum was still inside, putting her wallet away. ‘I don’t know why you’re still here,’ Ingrid murmured to Caleb. ‘After what you did to Sean.’

‘Where would I go?’

‘I don’t care. Just someplace else.’

Mum had seen them. The door slid open and she smiled over the top of the basket. ‘Caleb, you’re being helpful,’ she said, and turned to Ingrid. ‘Isn’t that nice?’