‘And how’s Ali?’

‘He’s great! He just got made a consultant. I mean, he’s working too hard – but aren’t we all.’

‘Not me.’ I give a slightly guilty laugh. ‘I’m swanning around on maternity leave.’

‘Yeah, right.’ She grins sideways at me. ‘I remember that kind of swanning. It involves sleep deprivation and cracked nipples. I’ll take the podiatry clinic at work, thanks.’ Then she looks around. ‘Where’s Freya? I want to meet her.’

‘She’s asleep – completely knackered by all the travel, I think. But she’ll wake up soon.’

We have reached the door of the Mill, and Fatima pauses with her hand on the knob.

‘Isa …’ she says slowly, and I know, without her having to spell it out, what she’s thinking, and what she’s going to ask. I shake my head.

‘I don’t know. I asked Kate, but she wants to wait until we’re all here. She said it wouldn’t be fair.’

Her shoulders sag, and suddenly it all seems hollow – the meaningless social questions dry as dust on my lips. I know that Fatima is as nervous as me, and that we are both thinking of that message from Kate, and trying not to think about what it might mean. What it must mean.

‘Ready?’ I ask. She blows out a long breath of air from between pursed lips, and then nods.

‘As I’ll ever be. Fuck, this is going to be weird.’

Then she opens the door, and I watch the past envelop her just as it did me.

When I got off the train at Salten that first day, there was no one else on the platform apart from Thea and Kate and a slight, dark-haired girl about eleven or twelve years of age, far up the other end. She looked uncertainly up and down the platform, and then began to walk towards us. As she got closer I saw that she was wearing a Salten uniform, and as she got closer still that she was much older than I’d taken her for – fifteen at least – just very petite.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Are you for Salten?’

‘No, we’re a gang of paedophiles wearing these uniforms as a lure,’ Thea said automatically, and then shook her head. ‘Sorry, that was dumb. Yes, we’re going to Salten too. Are you new?’

‘Yes.’ She fell in beside us, walking to the car park. ‘My name’s Fatima.’ She had a London accent that made me feel instantly at home. ‘Where are all the others? I thought the train would have lots of Salten girls on it.’

Kate shook her head.

‘Most people drive their kids, especially after the summer vac. And the day girls and weekly boarders don’t start until Monday.’

‘Are there lots of day girls?’

‘About a third of the school. I’m a weekly boarder myself. I’m only here because I’ve been staying with Thea in London for a few days, and we thought we’d go back together.’

‘Where’s home?’ Fatima asked.

‘Over there.’ Kate pointed across the salt marsh towards a glimmering tract of water, far in the distance. I blinked. I couldn’t see a house at all, but there might have been something, tucked behind one of the dunes, or the stunted trees that lined the railway.

‘How about you?’ Fatima turned to me. She had a round, friendly face and beautiful dark hair swept back from her temples in a clip. ‘Have you been here long? What year are you in?’

‘I’m fifteen, I’m going into the fifth. I – I’m new, like you. I’ll be boarding too.’ I didn’t want to get into the whole story – my mother’s illness, the long hospital stays that left me and my thirteen-year-old brother Will alone while my father worked late at the bank … the sucker-punch suddenness of the decision to send us both away, coming as it did out of a clear blue sky. I had never been any trouble, had I? I hadn’t rebelled, or taken drugs, or acted out. I had responded to my mother’s illness by being, if anything, even more diligent. By working harder and picking up more loose ends at home. By cooking and shopping and remembering to pay the cleaner when my father forgot.

And then, the talk … better for you both … more fun than being on your own … continuity … schoolwork mustn’t suffer … GCSEs an important year …

I hadn’t known what to say. In truth I was still dazed. Will had just nodded, his stiff upper lip firmly in place, but I heard him crying in the night. My father was driving him down to Charterhouse today, which was why I had travelled alone.

‘My father’s busy today,’ I heard myself say. The words sounded relaxed, almost rehearsed. ‘Otherwise I suppose he would have driven me down too.’

‘My parents are abroad,’ Fatima said. ‘They’re doctors. They’re doing this, like, charity thing for VSO? Giving a year of work for free.’

‘Fucking hell,’ Thea said. She looked impressed. ‘I can’t imagine my dad giving a weekend up, let alone a whole year. Are they getting paid anything at all?’

‘Not really. I mean, they get a stipend, I think that’s the word. Like an allowance. But it’s pegged to local wages so I don’t think it’s much. That’s not the point for them though – it’s like a religious thing for them, their version of sadqa.’

As she spoke we rounded the little station house, where a blue minibus was waiting, a woman in a skirt and jacket standing by the door with a clipboard.

‘Hello, girls,’ she said to Thea and Kate. ‘Had a good summer?’

‘Yes, thanks, Miss Rourke,’ Kate said. ‘This is Fatima and Isa. We met them on the train.’

‘Fatima …?’ Miss Rourke’s pen travelled down the list.

‘Qureshy,’ Fatima said. ‘That’s Q, U, R –’

‘Got it,’ Miss Rourke said briskly, ticking off a name. ‘And you must be Isa Wilde.’

She pronounced it ‘Izza’ but I only nodded meekly.

‘Am I saying it right?’

‘Actually it’s to rhyme with nicer.’

Miss Rourke made no comment, but noted something on her page, and then took our cases and slung them in the back of the minibus and then we climbed in, one after the other.

‘Swing the door shut,’ Miss Rourke said over her shoulder, and Fatima seized the door handle and rattled it closed. Then we were off, bumping out of the rutted car park, and down a deep-carved lane towards the sea.

Thea and Kate chatted away at the back of the van, while Fatima and I sat nervously, side by side, trying to look like this was something we did every day.

‘Have you boarded before?’ I said quietly to Fatima. She shook her head.

‘No. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to come here to be honest, I was well up for going to Pakistan with my parents, but Mum wouldn’t have it. How about you?’

‘First time too,’ I said. ‘Have you visited Salten?’

‘Yeah, I came down at the end of last year when Mum and Dad were looking at places. What did you think of it?’

‘I – I’ve not been. There wasn’t time.’

It was a fait accompli by the time Dad told me, too late for open days and visits. If Fatima thought this was strange, she didn’t betray her feelings.

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It looks – OK, now don’t get me wrong, cos this is going to sound awful, but it looks a bit like a very classy prison.’

I smothered a smile and nodded. I knew what she meant, I’d seen the pictures in the brochure and there was something slightly prison-like about the photos – the big rectangular white frontage facing the sea, the miles of iron railings. The photograph on the cover of the prospectus showed an exterior that was almost painfully austere, the mathematically precise proportions accentuated, rather than relieved, by four slightly absurd little turrets, one at each corner, as though the architect had had last-minute doubts about his vision, and had stuck them on as an afterthought, in some attempt to lessen the severity of the facade. Ivy, or even just some lichen, might have softened the corners of the place, but I guessed that nothing much would survive such a windswept location.

‘Do you think we’ll get a choice who we’re with? The bedrooms, I mean?’ I said. It was a question that had been preoccupying me since London. Fatima shrugged.