I shook my head. ‘Never. I went to a party and when I came back Dad wasn’t here and he never came back. I kept thinking that he would. He was always leaving and then coming home again. That was how our life was. For a long time after Mum died, I kept thinking he would just stroll back in, dump his bag on the sofa and it would be like it always had been before. I even practised what I was going to say to him, how I was going to explain about Mum. But he never came. And the longer he stayed away, the more I hated him.’

I paused, remembering how it had felt all over again.

‘I couldn’t understand it,’ I went on. ‘I tried to imagine what could possibly have been so bad that he’d leave like that, but I couldn’t think of anything. I tried to talk to Mum about it but she just kind of closed down. It was like part of her had died that day. She loved him so much and I thought he loved us, but it just shows how wrong you can be about someone, doesn’t it? Anyway, Mum couldn’t bear to live without him, so she just gave up and killed herself.’

I heard Clio suck her breath in as if she was going to start to sob, and I turned to look at her. Her eyes were shining with tears. I gave her a wry half-smile to show her that it was okay really, and that it was all a long time ago. She tried, unsuccessfully, to smile back. One of her tears leaked out and trickled down her cheek. I was okay, though I couldn’t quite believe that I was able to talk about it in such a matter-of-fact manner. But maybe that was the best way to deal with it, by making light and pretending that it had all happened to someone else.

I kept going. ‘So when Mum died I was left here on my own, just me. Leah Allen versus The World. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I had a bit of money – not much, just my savings and what there was lying around. Mum had a stash under her mattress for a rainy day, which I took, and I had the house. But that was it. Some of Mum’s friends clubbed together to help me with the funeral – they did the food for afterwards and that kind of thing – but then one by one they all drifted back to their own lives. I just floundered.’

Clio shook her head in disbelief. Her mouth kept falling open slightly as she listened, as if she couldn’t take in what I was saying. Then she’d recover herself, and I’d tell her something that was worse than the last thing.