She waved a hand. ‘Put it behind you, Alison. We need to get you sorted here now.’ She was right – the mess of my recuperating daughter, now out of hospital but refusing to go anywhere or see anyone; my husband, who was set to receive a partial liver transplant in just a few days. He would be receiving it from Jake, and in return for ripping himself open, Jake would likely face a lighter sentence; and if Mike recovered, he would go on trial. Where I would testify and say I thought my husband had raped my best friend, in our garden, while I slept upstairs. I’d say he had confessed the truth to me, because it was the only way to save his life. I’d fought it for so long it felt strangely inevitable. I hadn’t been able to stop any of it, and my efforts had only made things worse. It was time to just give in. I hoped Karen would never hear of my madness the other day, suggesting Aaron might be involved somehow. A last-ditch, desperate attempt. They had Mike’s DNA. I had to face the truth.

‘I’ll put the tea on,’ Mum said, and I dimly registered that not long ago I would have winced at this, snapping ‘dinner’ back at her. I’d worked so hard to shed those working-class tells. As she moved into the kitchen, the phone began to ring and I heard her answer it: ‘Morris home.’ I felt a brief stab of gratitude that she was here, that maybe we could salvage something from all this. And if it meant old Ali, working-class Ali, wasn’t gone after all, perhaps it was good. Middle-class Ali hadn’t got a clue, it turned out.

Mum appeared in the doorway, holding the wireless handset to her chest, looking troubled. ‘It’s a nurse,’ she said.

‘Mike?’ I stood up too fast.

‘No, in London. Something about a Mrs Mackintosh, having her baby?’

If Mum hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have gone. I had too much to do to keep my own family together, never mind other people’s. But Jodi was my closest friend now Karen hated me, and she’d asked for me. Mum had the house in hand, and knew to make sure Benji ate well and did his homework, to not believe Cassie if she said she was fine or wasn’t hungry. And so I ran to catch the train to London. It was quiet, all the commuters going the other way. Within two hours I was at London Bridge and swapping trains to Waterloo, and then to St Thomas’s Hospital.

1996