Her mother sighed. ‘She’s all you talk about, love. Ever since you got back, Zadie this, Zadie that. Zadie went to boarding school where you wore your own clothes, Zadie has four brothers and sisters; Zadie, Zadie, Zadie. Apart from sometimes, when it’s Max, Max, Max.’

‘Oh.’ Chloe felt stung. What was she supposed to say to that?

‘I’m not having a go at you, my love, it’s all right. I just don’t want you to get too attached to a couple of people and miss out on making other friends.’

‘I am making other friends.’

‘Your own friends? Or their friends?’ Her mother was polishing the glasses before putting them away, her favourite part of the cleaning ritual. ‘Because if things go sour with them you want to still have other friends to spend time with.’

‘Why would it go sour with them?’

Her mother seemed to consider her next words carefully. ‘I might not know what I’m talking about. Maybe it won’t happen. It’s just that people like them, people from money, they can see people like us as …’ She paused. Chloe looked at the plate in her hand and imagined just how it would feel to smash it against the countertop. ‘Disposable,’ her mother finished.

‘Max and Zadie aren’t like that.’

‘Hopefully not.’

Her mother’s hands were pink against the white tea towel, patterned with blue veins. Her wrists were twig-like, tiny. ‘I am making other friends as well,’ she repeated, after a little while.

‘Oh?’

‘The girls on my corridor are really sweet. Lissy, she’s one of my good friends. We go to the pub together, and we went out clubbing before the end of term. She’s from a couple of miles down the road.’

Her mother looked as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, which made Chloe feel simultaneously furious and comforted.