Sunday 28 August

I get up early again on Sunday to talk to Mum, to test if I have the courage to tell her. Since my conversation with Ben, I can’t stop asking myself how badly do I want it? The answer still hasn’t arrived.

Ady is talking with Mum and Ady needs a little comfort, so I let her have that. I stand in the hallway, giving them time, listening to Mum explain how she and Dad are depending on me getting the scholarship because money is scarcer than it’s ever been. She says how proud they are, and how she doesn’t mean that I have to get the scholarship, that’s not what she means, they’ll find the money somehow, but it’ll be a huge load off their minds when I do.

Ady gives nothing away. She tells Mum about the intimidating nature of my braininess, and Mum laughs and admits she’s been intimidated by me since I was about two. ‘There’s a genius a few generations back on her father’s side, and I’m pretty sure that’s where it comes from.’

I want to go into the kitchen, sit next to Mum, and be that girl who had such firm and achievable ambitions, but I can’t. I want to go back to my bedroom and reply to Oliver and tell him that I’ve told my parents everything, but I can’t do that either. So I just stand here on the warm floor, in my bare feet, on a small island of sun, till it moves into shadow.

I hear my phone ringing from my room, and I run back to answer it before it wakes Clem.

‘So are you having fun?’ Iris asks, sounding so sick and lonely that I feel like I need to give her something. I tell her I wish she could have been here. ‘We’ve basically spent the time cheering up Ady. There’s bad stuff going on with her family. She might not even be able to come back to school.’

‘That sucks,’ Iris says after I’ve explained, and I’m reminded again why I like Iris. She’s harsh on the surface, but not underneath. In some ways, she’s not unlike Ady.

‘So we’ll be back soon,’ I say.

Later, lying with Clem and Ady near the river, after we’ve exhausted the subjects of Ben and Oliver and Max, I ask Clem about Iris and why they don’t get along.

‘We did a long time ago,’ Clem says. ‘We do still, actually, in some ways. It’s hard being a twin.’ She takes a piece of grass and splits it down the centre with her nail, then shows it to us, as if she can’t put into words what it’s like.