‘What are you crying for?’ her mum snapped over her dad’s shoulder. ‘Honestly, Bessie, I expected more from you . . . Look at the state of you! Where did you get alcohol?’

‘Someone at school,’ she said. This wasn’t entirely a lie. Philip did go to her school. Or rather the school she used to go to. Three hundred and sixty-one! She cried again.

‘Up you go, Bessie. This is certainly not the sixteenth birthday I would have planned for you.’ Her mum’s words dripped with disapproval.

‘Really?’ Bessie shot back at her. ‘Well, that’s funny, because it’s exactly what I wanted – to be home within the hour looking like I fell down a well! While everyone else on the planet is having a party and thinking about the sixth form!’

‘Now I know you’re upset, but don’t shout at your mother.’ Her dad took his place by his wife’s side.

‘I think you should go up to your room this very minute, Bessie.’ Her mum kept her tone level.

‘Well, where else am I going to go? The library in the east wing? For a dip in our pool? Or maybe a sobering stroll around the grounds? Or how about I take the bloody Monopoly money and use it to buy my plane ticket?’ Her anger and sarcasm were closely bound and sadly misdirected. Gripping the banister, she made her way slowly up the stairs. Before she had reached the landing, her mum’s voice called after her.

‘Do you . . . do you want that sandwich?’

Bessie shook her head and laughed. That sandwich was the very last thing she wanted. Her mouth filled with water at the thought. Opening her bedroom door, she was met with the clutter of make-up brushes, tins of hairspray, pyjama bottoms, old crisp packets and a half-drunk bottle of cherry Panda Pops on every surface – the washed-up detritus of her earlier preparations. She remembered how great she had felt in the moments before her life had been pulled apart by Tony’s words, and what she had seen from her covert spot behind the bins. Jumping up on to the bed, she ripped at her Duran Duran poster.

‘I fucking hate you, Simon!’