I close my bedroom door behind me and lean against it for a few moments, relishing this small patch of carpet that is my own. It never used to be a bedroom, just a small storage room with a bare window, but I managed to squeeze a camp bed in here three years ago when I realized that sharing a bunk bed with siblings had some serious drawbacks. It is one of the few places where I can be completely alone: no pupils with knowing eyes and mocking smirks; no teachers firing questions at me; no shouting, jostling bodies. And there is still a small oasis of time before our mother goes out on her date and dinner has to get underway and the arguments over food and homework and bedtime begin.

I drop my bag and blazer on the floor, kick off my shoes and sit down on the bed with my back against the wall, knees drawn up in front of me. My usually tidy space bears all the frantic signs of a slept-through alarm: clock knocked to the floor, bed unmade, chair covered with discarded clothes, floor littered with books and papers, spilled from the piles on my desk. The flaking walls are bare save for a small snapshot of the seven of us, taken during our final annual holiday in Blackpool two months before Dad left. Willa, still a baby, is on Mum’s lap, Tiffin’s face is smeared with chocolate ice cream, Kit is hanging upside down off the bench, and Maya is trying to yank him back up. The only faces clearly visible are Dad’s and mine – we have our arms slung across each other’s shoulders, grinning broadly at the camera. I rarely look at the photo, despite having rescued it from Mum’s bonfire. But I like the feel of it being close by: a reminder that those happier times were not simply a figment of my imagination.

CHAPTER TWO

Maya

My key jams in the lock again. I curse, then kick the door in my usual manner. The moment I step out of the late afternoon sunshine and into the darkened hallway, I sense that things are already a little wild. Predictably the front room is a tip – crisp packets, book bags, school letters and abandoned homework strewn across the carpet. Kit is eating Cheerios straight from the box, trying to throw the odd one across the room into Willa’s open mouth.

‘Maya, Maya, look what Kit can do!’ Willa calls excitedly to me as I shed my blazer and tie in the doorway. ‘He can get them into my mouth all the way from over there!’

Despite the mess of cereal trampled into the carpet, I can’t help smiling. My little sister is the cutest five-year-old in history. Her dimpled cheeks, flushed pink with exertion, are still gently rounded with baby chubbiness, her face lit with a soft innocence. Since losing her front teeth she has taken to poking the tip of her tongue through the gap when she smiles. Her waist-length hair hangs down her back, straight and fine like gold silk, the colour matched by the tiny studs in her ears. Beneath an overgrown fringe, her large eyes wear a permanently startled look, the colour of deep water. She has exchanged her uniform for a flowery pink summer dress, her current favourite, and is hopping from foot to foot, delighted by her teenage brother’s antics.

I turn to Kit with a grin. ‘Looks like the two of you have been having a very productive afternoon. I hope you remember where we keep the vacuum cleaner.’

Kit responds by throwing a handful of cereal in Willa’s direction. For a moment I think he is just going to ignore me, but then he declares, ‘It’s not a game, it’s target practice. Mum won’t care – she’s out with Lover Boy again tonight, and by the time she makes it home she’ll be too wasted to notice.’

I open my mouth to object to Kit’s choice of words, but Willa is egging him on, and seeing that he is neither sulking nor arguing, I decide to let it pass, and collapse on the couch. My thirteen-year-old brother has changed in recent months: a summer growth spurt has accentuated his already skinny frame, his sandy hair has been cut short to show off the fake diamond stud in his ear and his hazel eyes have hardened. Something has shifted in his manner too. The child is still there but buried beneath an unfamiliar toughness: the change around the eyes, the defiant set of the jaw, the harsh, mirthless laugh all give him an alien, jagged edge. Yet during brief, genuine moments like these, when he is just having fun, the mask slips a little and I see my kid brother again.

‘Is Lochan doing dinner tonight?’ I ask.

‘Obviously.’

‘Dinner . . .’ Willa’s hand flies to her mouth in alarm. ‘Lochie said one last warning.’

‘He was bluffing—’ Kit tries to forestall her, but she is off down the corridor to the kitchen at a gallop, always anxious to please. I sit up on the couch, yawning, and Kit starts flicking cereal at my forehead.

‘Watch it. That’s all we’ve got for the morning and I don’t see you eating it off the floor.’ I stand up. ‘Come on. Let’s go see what Lochan’s cooked up.’

‘Fucking pasta – what else does he ever make?’ Kit tosses the open cereal box onto the armchair, spilling half its contents across the cushions, his good mood evaporating in a heartbeat.

‘Well, perhaps you could start learning how to cook. Then we could all three take turns.’

Kit shoots me a condescending look and stalks ahead of me into the kitchen.

‘Out, Tiffin. I said, get the ball out of the room.’ Lochan has a boiling saucepan in one hand and is trying to manhandle Tiffin through the door with the other.

‘Goal!’ Tiffin yells, shooting the ball under the table. I catch it, toss it into the corridor and grab Tiffin as he tries to dive past me.

‘Help, help, she’s strangling me!’ he yells, miming asphyxiation.

I manoeuvre him onto his chair. ‘Sit!’

At the sight of food he complies, grabbing his knife and fork and beating out a drum roll on the table. Willa laughs and picks up her cutlery to copy.

‘Don’t . . .’ I warn her.

Her smile fades, and for a moment she looks chastened. I feel a pang of guilt. Willa is loving and biddable, whereas Tiffin is always bursting with energy and mischief. As a consequence she is always witnessing her brother get away with murder. Moving quickly round the kitchen, I set out the plates, pour the water, return the cooking ingredients to their respective homes.

‘OK, tuck in, everyone.’ Lochan has dished up. Four plates, one pink Barbie bowl. Pasta with cheese, pasta with cheese and sauce, pasta with sauce but no cheese, broccoli – which neither Kit nor Tiffin will touch – craftily hidden round the sides.

‘Hello, you.’ I catch his sleeve before he heads back to the cooker, and smile. ‘You OK?’

‘I’ve been home two hours and they’ve already gone crazy.’ He shoots me a look of exaggerated despair and I laugh.

‘Mum left already?’

He nods. ‘Did you remember the milk?’

‘Yeah, but we need to do a proper shop.’

‘I’ll go after school tomorrow.’ Lochan spins round in time to catch Tiffin leaping for the door. ‘Oi!’

‘I’m done, I’m done! I’m not hungry any more!’

‘Tiffin, would you just sit down at the table like a normal person and eat your meal?’ Lochan’s voice begins to rise.

‘But Ben and Jamie are only allowed out for another half-hour!’ Tiffin yells in protest, his face scarlet beneath his mop of tow-coloured hair.

‘It’s six-thirty! You’re not going back outside tonight!’

Tiffin throws himself back into his chair in fury, arms folded, knees drawn up. ‘That’s so not fair! I hate you!’

Lochan wisely ignores Tiffin’s antics and instead turns his attention to Willa, who has given up trying to use a fork and is eating the spaghetti with her fingers, tilting back her head and sucking in each strand from the bottom. ‘Look,’ Lochan shows her. ‘You wind it round like this . . .’