There was a quiet knock at the door. She closed her eyes, praying that at this late hour it was not her mum with the offer of a sandwich, and still terrified that at some point her parents would find out, hear the rumour, share her shame . . .

‘Bessie?’

Relieved to hear her brother’s voice, she opened the bathroom door. Philip came in and sat on the edge of the bath, while Bessie took up a place on the floor, using her discarded sticky clothes as a floor cushion. They each looked forward, avoiding eye contact. She scrunched the hem of her nightie between her fingers, fidgeting and embarrassed.

‘I just wanted to say that Lawrence Paulson is a fucking jerk,’ he whispered. Bessie’s head dropped on to her knees and she cried. The fact that he was being kind and supportive was almost more than she could stand and certainly more than she felt she deserved.

‘Who . . . who told you?’ she managed.

‘Gary Bradshaw.’

Of course, he and Lawrence played football together . . .

‘Then Sean Thornton, Nicola Pie, Tony Dunlop, those two irritating girls – what’s their names?’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Verity and Monica, and a couple of others whose names I don’t know.’

‘Oh my God, Philip!’ Bessie’s shame was complete, and she struggled to take a full breath. It felt like the walls were closing in. She remembered how when Leonard Bethelbrook, a boy in the year above, had died, and when Georgina Martin had gone to live with her nan in Cumbria when her parents got divorced and she went off the rails, they were all anyone could talk about. Information, opinion or an extra juicy fact was valuable collateral and she had become that very thing! She was the latest Leonard Bethelbrook or Georgina Martin, the person under discussion! Bessie wrapped her arms around her scraped shins and felt light, removed from the world and yet at the same time weighted down by the burden of this terrible, terrible event.

‘I don’t know what to do . . . I just don’t know what to do, Philip!’

‘Don’t worry. Most people think it’s utter bollocks. They’ll stop talking about you in a week or so and then it’ll be someone else’s turn.’

‘Lucky them,’ she sniffed. ‘Do you think it’s utter bollocks?’ She looked up at him now and saw the double blink and the way he looked towards the window.

‘I think it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. I think it’s your business and all that matters is where you go from here.’

‘I want to go to bed and never get up, that’s where I want to go.’

‘Well, that can’t happen and so you need to be strong and tough it out.’

‘I don’t know if I can.’ Bessie looked again at her brother.