I refused supper. I lay in bed until my thoughts darkened and solidified to the point where I couldn’t bear the weight of them, and at eight thirty I came back downstairs and sat silently watching television, perched on the other side of Granddad, who was the only person in our family guaranteed not to ask me a question. He sat in his favourite armchair and stared at the screen with glassy-eyed intensity. I was never sure whether he was watching, or whether his mind was somewhere else entirely.
‘Are you sure I can’t get you something, love?’ Mum appeared at my side with a cup of tea. There was nothing in our family that couldn’t be improved by a cup of tea, allegedly.
‘No. Not hungry, thanks.’
I saw the way she glanced at Dad. I knew that later on there would be private mutterings that
