70. Now

My whole body is numb. I feel weightless. I follow the line of dark spots up the stairs. We're trying to be quiet, but the stairs creak with each step and Mina shrieks as she slips and grabs the banister. When she stands, her leg has a streak of red from her knee to her ankle.

Dust, cobwebs, grimy light.

This isn't how I remember Georgia's house.

Laughter, glasses glinting in candlelight, music, Georgia singing in the bay window as her father played the viola or the saxophone or simply a castanet. If we were there, then my parents weren't fighting, my mother's tiny voice silenced by the walls and my father's booming bass shaking them.

And Georgia said it was the same for her. We conspired to bring our families ever closer, to spend as much time as we could in the golden, glittering truce of Together Time. Wednesdays, weekends, holidays, we were in and out of each other's houses. Miss Smith and Patrick would cook delicious meals and we would eat till we were close to groaning.

It felt so normal. We were a normal family who had normal friends. It felt so real.

But that normal feeling dissipated on the drives home. Father was always itching to dissect the evening, do them down, even though I'd never seen him so happy, so relaxed.

‘Did you see when he asked her to pass the wine – when their hands touched? Well, the woman just barely covered it, but I saw her flinch away.'

‘What do you think he meant when he said it was all Arianne – that everything they had was down to her hard work? It felt as though he was suggesting perhaps they wouldn't be together if not for her efforts, didn't you think?'

‘You know they don't own the house?' he told us. ‘Patrick's friend lets them stay there, rent-free.'

‘Arianne, now there's a girl who thinks highly of herself.'

‘Did you know, Patrick wrote the score for that BBC thing, the period drama with Audrey whatshername? Oh, of course you know. He's only mentioned it every single time we've been.'

‘I've been wondering. I don't think they usually say grace. Not when we're not there. They always stumble over what to say.'

‘Oh, I know he has a beautiful voice and he plays all those instruments, but don't you find the way he performs like he does so… excessive, sweaty, like he's on a stage? Don't you find it sometimes a bit aggressive, a bit obscene?'

‘I know it's not kind to laugh at the proles, but when they bring out the cheeseboard at the end with the plastic wrappers still on and the crackers in their boxes, it is a little heart-breaking.'

And then the strangest: ‘You have to be careful of the gays,' my father said. ‘You never really know what they're thinking.'

‘Who's gay?' was my first question.

‘Who's gay?' said my father. ‘Any man who works in theatre. Don't you know that, darling?' He twisted around to look at me with a head tilt. ‘That's why,' he said, ‘we could never truly be friends.'

They weren't really friends? As far as I could tell, they were the only friends my parents had ever had.

‘Oh, they're good fun,' my father said. ‘The gays are always fun. And we can have our fun so long as we don't get too drawn in.'

I didn't want to ask why, because I knew the answer, and I also knew my father was about to spell it out anyway. It was one of his favourite subjects.

He twisted round again, taking his eyes off the road to look me and Tristan each in the eye. ‘God made men and women to love each other. To procreate and spread his love. The gay lifestyle is a…' He could barely bring himself to say it, though he always did, spitting out the words. ‘Disgusting, depraved, degenerate act of subversion against God.' And he reached over to my mother and ran his fingers up and down her thigh, and I watched her go as still as a rabbit.

I should never have bullied Georgia. Tristan and I should never have started those rumours about Miss Smith. Even at the time, we knew that. But it was instinctive, and once we started, it was impossible to stop. Hurt and lie, hurt and lie. It's the only way to keep going. Because the moment you stop to think, it all falls apart. Every last thing.

‘What was that?' Lydia hisses, putting a hand on my shoulder.

We stop and listen, and then Tristan roars, ‘ASH! AVA?'

There's a thudding and muffled shouts and then we're all running towards it.