I took a deep breath of fresh air and let the door bang to, going over to hold on to her dress. She shook me off.

‘What is it?’ she said. ‘I’m busy.’

‘The others don’t like me,’ I said. ‘Connor called me a cunt.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, grow up!’ she snapped, and I started to cry. It worked because she sat down on the edge of the bath and held me. ‘There ... don’t cry. Tell me, what’s wrong?’

It was easier to cry than tell her about Brian, or the money, or being in the wrong about getting everyone into trouble, so I burst into tears again. She held me away from her by the sides of my arms and looked into my face. I don’t know what she saw but she buckled up her lips and shook her head.

‘Ah, no, it won’t do,’ she said. Then, ‘Another fine mess you’ve got me into.’

I thought she wasn’t taking me seriously, I could feel myself getting angry. I tried to shake her off and get my arms free but she wasn’t letting go.

‘He’s turned them against you, do you see?’ she said. ‘And he’s going to take five pounds out of the housekeeping. There’ll be less to eat. We can’t afford it,’ she said. ‘And neither can you.’

I couldn’t cry any more, and I couldn’t pretend to be on my own side. I felt like I’d lost weight, I was floating. I heard myself say, ‘It wasn’t me,’ but the thought came in my head, so who was it?

She pulled me close and held me. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said, ‘you don’t know.’ Her clothes were wet against her body, she was hot. I looked down at the clothes in the bath behind her. We were all there, climbing over one another in the muddy water – trousers, arms, socks, kicking and struggling. The collar of my dad’s shirt was up on the scrubbing board, by the plughole I saw brown stains on a pair of my underpants.

I was running up behind Brian’s mum as she was pushing the pram and dragging Brian along in her other hand. She was telling me not now, we could play when we got into school. She kept looking over her shoulder, back at the house, but I’d been watching for them to come out and his dad had already left with another man. I ran up when I saw Brian and gave him a hug and jumped around to show how much I wanted to be with him.

‘Don’t do that!’ she said. ‘Come on, we’ll be late for school.’

Brian gave me a quick look, ‘My uncle’s in,’ he said. ‘He’s not well.’