You learn things in life, don’t you, whether you like it or not. God, it’s awful.

I’m eleven years old. Our father fills the bath with cold water, orders me to dump a tray of ice cubes into it, and tells my older brother Patrick to strip off his clothes. Our father is tall, angular and taciturn; a man accustomed to being obeyed by his family, if no one else. His crucial error is to mistake disdain for respect. He has a stopwatch in one hand.

‘We’ll see what you’re made of,’ he sniffs.