Scott had a hangover. It was a peculiarly discouraging hangover because he had had neither the seductively reckless intention of getting drunk nor the reward of losing inhibition during the process, but had merely gone on acc epting drinks and buying rounds, with a passive kind of aimlessness, until he found himself tottering unsteadily under the railway arch outside the Clavering Building and wondering why it was so difficult to extricate his keys from his pocket. It was then, as he stood fumbling and cursing, that Donna had caught up with him. Two summers before, he’d had something going with Donna, who worked in the same law firm as he did and who thought his ability to play the piano was a very hot attribute indeed. They had spent a lot of nights and weekends together on the modern, black-framed bed in Scott’s flat, and then Donna had begun to ask to meet Margaret, and to stock the fridge with probiotic yoghurts, and berries in plastic
43 boxes, and to collect Scott’s work suits from the dry cleaner’s, and Scott had, in response, devised ways of avoiding her in the office and leaving clubs and pubs before she did. When she cornered him, and demanded to know what he was playing at, he said exactly what was in his mind, which was that sex was one thing, but love was quite another, and she should know that he thought sex with her was great. In revenge, she went out, immediately, with Colin from the family d epartment, who was divorced and drove a BMW, and it didn’t seem to strike her that Scott, after a pang or two of competitive sexual jealousy, hardly minded at all. There’d been Clare, from accounts, anyway, even if that only lasted six weeks, after she’d borrowed two hundred quid from him and never paid it back. But recently, Donna had started to be very nice to Scott again. Not flirtatious nice, but just friendly and pleasant and cheerful, which made Scott look at her rather as he had first looked at her two years ago, and she had picked up these tentative signals in an instant, and had watched, and waited, and last night, at the end of one of those post-work office-colleague social sessions that seemed like a good idea at the time, she had followed him down the hill from the city centre to the Clavering Building, and slipped her hand into his trouser pocket from behind, and pulled his keys out with no trouble at all. And then she had taken him into his own building, and up to his own flat, and into his own bed, and he had felt, then, quite pleased to acquiesce, and, a bit later, for a short while, positive and energetic, and, later still, perfectly content to fall down, down into slumber with Donna against his back and her breath stroking between his shoulder blades in little warm puffs. In the morning, she was gone. She had slipped out from beside him, smoothed the pillow she had lain on, dressed, and left. There was no evidence she had been there, no hairs in the basin, no damp towels. His toothbrush was dry. The only thing that proved to him that she had not been part of a giant alcoholic hallucination the night before – if pressed, Scott knew he probably couldn’t even name the last club they had all been to – was that on the kitchen worktop was an empty tumbler and a foil square of Alka-Seltzer tablets. Scott ran water into the tumbler, and dropped two of the tablets into it, holding the glass away from him, eyes screwed shut, as if the fizzing of the tablets as they dissolved was too much for a head as tender as his to bear. He drank. Then he held his breath. There were always a few seconds, with Alka-Seltzer, when you wondered whether you would throw it up as fast as you had swallowed it. Nothing happened. He ran another glass of water, and drank that. Then he bent and inserted his face sideways under the tap, and let the water splash across his eyes and ears and down his neck. In the bathroom mirror, he looked at himself with revulsion. Being so dark meant a navy-blue chin most mornings. Today, his skin was yellowish grey and there were bruises around his eyes and he looked ill. Which he was. Poisoned. His liver must be in despair. ‘You are,’ he said to his reflection, ‘too old for this. Any day now, you’ll just be sad. Sad, sad, sad, sad.’ He shut his eyes. This was the moment selfpity usually kicked in, the self-pity which had lain in wait for him ever since a history master at school – who had had his own reasons for ingratiating himself with the better-looking boys – had taken him aside, after Richie had left, and put an arm round his shoulders and said, in a voice intense with understanding sympathy, ‘I am very, very sorry for you, my boy.’ Scott had broken down. The history master had been very ad ept at comforting him, had made him feel there was no loss of manliness in we eping. ‘Just not in front of your mother,’ the history master said. ‘She has enough to bear. Come to me, when things get too
44 much. Come to me. It will be our secret.’ The word ‘secret’ had alarmed Scott. But the feeling of warmth, of understanding, remained. All his life since then, Scott could summon up, at will, the adolescent desolation of that moment, and the permission he had been given – whatever the motive – to grieve for his loss, and for the loneliness it left him in. Now standing naked in his bathroom, feeling disgusting and disgusted in every atom of his maltreated body, he waited to be given the pardon of self-pity. But it wouldn’t come. ‘Fuck,’ Scott said to the mirror. He picked up the spray can of shaving foam, and pressed the nozzle. Nothing happened. He shook the can. It rattled emptily. He flung it furiously across the bathroom and it clattered into the shower tray. He picked an already used disposable razor out of the soap dish, and, with his other hand, attempted to lather a cake of soap onto his chin. He was two unsatisfactory stripes down the left-hand side when his phone rang. Of course, he couldn’t find it. Last night’s clothes – his work suit, a shirt, socks, underpants – were in a shameful stew on the floor. From somewhere inside the mess, his phone was ringing. It would be Donna. Not content with the gentle hint of the Alka-Seltzer, she would be ringing to make sure he was awake and would not be late for work. She would also, no doubt, be after some little reference to last night, some little reassurance that he had wanted what had happened, that she had, somehow, reminded him of what he had been missing, that they might now—He found the phone, in the back pocket of his trousers, just as it stopped ringing. ‘One missed call’, said the screen. He pressed Select. ‘Mam’, the screen said helpfully. Scott went back to the bathroom, and found a towel. He wound it round his waist, and then he took the phone into the sitting room, to look at the view rather than at his own dispiriting face. It was seven-forty in the morning. What could Margaret want, at seven-forty in the morning, unless she was ill? Scott dialled her number, and then stood, leaning against the windowsill, and looked at the rain outside, falling in soft, wet sheets through the girders of the Tyne Bridge and into the river below. ‘Were you in the shower?’ Margaret said. ‘Sort of—’ ‘Sorry to ring so early, but I’ve got a long day—’ ‘Are you OK?’ Scott said. ‘Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be? I’m off to Durham in ten minutes.’ ‘Oh,’ Scott said. If he didn’t concentrate on focusing, he would see two Tyne Bridges, at least. He wondered if his mother had ever had a hangover. ‘I wanted to catch you,’ Margaret said, ‘before you got to the office.’ ‘Are you OK?’ Scott said again. He shut one eye. ‘Perfectly fine,’ Margaret said. ‘Why d’you ke ep asking? I’m fine, and so is Dawson, and I’m about to drive to Durham to see a new club. I could do with more venues in Durham. Scott, dear—’ ‘Yes?’ He closed both eyes. ‘Scott, pet,’ Margaret said. Her voice was warm and he could tell a request was coming. ‘I want you to do something for me.’ ‘What—’ ‘It’s for you, really. It’s about the piano. I want you to make a call, about the piano.’ Scott opened his eyes and made himself focus sternly on a single bridge. ‘Who to?’ he said. Tamsin worked in the oldest estate agency in Highgate village. There were a great many estate agencies up the hill, but the one where Tamsin worked prided itself on its antiquity, and the famous houses – famous both for their beauty and for the celebrity of their inhabitants – that had been bought and sold over the years through their good offices. Tamsin, after failing to get into art school and declining either the cookery course or IT skills course suggested to her, had found herself a job in the estate agency, with which she declared herself perfectly satisfied. It was, basically, a rec eption job with the added task of arranging all the appointments for viewings of the properties, and it
45 was becoming plain to the five partners of the company that Tamsin possessed the kind of competent attention to detail, as well as an admirably together appearance, that made her, especially in the present perilous times, good value in every sense. Rather than promote her, or increase her pay, the partners tacitly decided that the initial tactic to prevent her beginning to think that she might be better off somewhere else was to flatter and thank her. Tamsin, deftly managing the office diary, and answering the tel ephone and enquiries in person, to perfection, was well aware that the smiling compliments that came her way on a daily basis were not without ulterior motive. In return, she declined to reassure the partners that, for the moment, aged twenty-one, with a boyfriend who was the definition of steady and the recent loss of her father and the effect of that loss on both her mother and sisters, she had no intention of going anywhere. All the same, it was nice to be treated as valuable. It was nice to have the attention she paid to hair and clothes obviously appreciated. It was nice to know that, as far as r epresenting the firm was concerned, she was giving a good impression. All these reassurances were contributing to Tamsin’s sense that, amidst all the family grief and insecurity and anxiety, she was emerging as the one member of the family who could be relied on to think straight even in the midst of emotional turmoil. And so, returning home one evening from work, and walking into the empty kitchen to find Amy’s phone jerking its little jewelled dolphin about and ringing, unattended, on the kitchen table, Tamsin did not hesitate to pick it up and, after a cursory glance revealed an unfamiliar number on the screen, say crisply into it, ‘Amy’s phone.’ There was silence at the other end. ‘Hello?’ Tamsin said, still using her office inflection. ‘Hello? This is Amy’s phone.’ She waited another second or two and then a voice, a man’s voice with a distinct North-East accent, said, ‘It’s Scott here. I was hoping to speak to Amy.’ ‘Scott!’ Tamsin said in her normal voice. ‘Yes—’ ‘Why are you ringing? Why are you ringing Amy?’ ‘Because,’ Scott said, ‘she’s the only one I’ve spoken to.’ ‘When?’ ‘When what—’ ‘When,’ Tamsin demanded, ‘did you speak to her?’ ‘Look,’ Scott said, more belligerently, ‘I’m not bothering her. And I’m not saying anything that might get her into trouble. I rang her because we’ve spoken and I’ve got her number. Who are you, anyway?’ ‘Tamsin,’ Tamsin said frostily. ‘Ah Tamsin.’ ‘And what did you want to say to Amy?’ There was a sigh the other end of the line. ‘I didn’t want to say anything to Amy. In particular. I just wanted to ask one of you something, and Amy was the one I’d spoken to.’ Tamsin found she was standing at her full height, as if she was in court, giving evidence. ‘What did you want to ask?’ ‘Well,’ Scott said, ‘I want to ask when it would be convenient to collect the piano.’ ‘What?’ ‘When would it be—’ ‘I heard you!’ Tamsin shrieked. There was a scuffle behind her. Amy appeared, holding out her hand for the phone. ‘Gimme—’ ‘How dare you,’ Tamsin said to Scott. ‘Have you got absolutely no sensitivity? How—’ ‘Give me that!’ Amy said, trying to reach her phone. ‘What are you doing on my phone? I’d only gone to the loo. Give it—’ ‘Take it,’ Tamsin said furiously. She flung it across the table, where it skidded to the far side and fell down beside the radiator. Amy darted after it. ‘Who is it?’ ‘That man,’ Tamsin said between clenched teeth. ‘That man. From Newcastle—’ Amy was under the table. Tamsin bent down so that she could see her. ‘What’s he doing, ringing you? What’ve you been up to?’ Amy retrieved her phone and held it to her ear. ‘Hello? Are you still there?’ ‘Are you OK?’ Scott said. ‘Is that Amy?’ ‘I’m fine,’ Amy said. ‘I’m
46 under the kitchen table.’ Tamsin straightened up. She thumped hard on the table above Amy’s head. ‘What was that?’ Scott said. ‘My sister—’ ‘Don’t talk to him!’ Tamsin shouted. ‘Don’t have anything to do with him!’ Amy took the phone away from her ear. She shouted back, ‘We’re not all witches like you!’ and then she said to Scott, ‘Why are you ringing?’ ‘Sorry if it’s not very tactful,’ Scott said, ‘but I was wondering when it’d be OK to collect the piano.’ ‘Oh.’ ‘Have I rung at a bad time?’ ‘It’s all pretty bad just now.’ ‘Look, forget it. Sorry. Leave it. I’ll ring another time. In a few weeks. It was just my mam—’ He stopped. Amy watched Tamsin’s legs move very slowly towards the door. Scott said, ‘Are you really OK?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you still under the table?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Look,’ Scott said, ‘I’ll ring off now. You’ve got my number. You ring me when things have calmed down a bit.’ Amy said, clearly so that Tamsin could hear, ‘It’s your piano, you know.’ Tamsin’s legs stopped moving. ‘No hurry,’ Scott said. ‘I’ll leave it to you. OK? You ring me when you can.’ ‘Cheers,’ Amy said. She clicked the call to end. Then she sat crouched and still under the table. Tamsin came back and bent down again. ‘What are you playing at, you disloyal little beast?’ ‘Nothing,’ Amy said. ‘I heard you,’ Tamsin said, ‘I heard you. Talking to him all nice as pie. I heard you.’ ‘He said to leave it. He said he didn’t mean to upset anyone. He said he’d leave it till we’re ready.’ ‘We’ll never be ready.’ ‘We’ve got to be,’ Amy said. ‘We’ve got to, one day. It’s their piano.’ Tamsin straightened up again. ‘Come out of there.’ Amy crawled slowly out from under the table, and stood up. She was wearing a green sweatshirt and cut-off jeans, since her school did not require uniform in the sixth form. ‘You wait,’ Tamsin said. ‘You just wait until Mum hears about this.’ Amy raised her chin, just a little. ‘OK,’ she said. Donna, having left Scott in bed that morning with what she felt was admirable sophistication, found that she couldn’t concentrate at work. It seemed that the price of being mature enough to leave a sle eping lover without a word of affection from him was that the maturity was only temporary, and the need to be reassured came back later, in double measure, as a result of being initially r epressed. So, after two hours of fiddling about pointlessly at her computer, Donna made a plausible excuse to her nearest colleague, and headed for what she hoped would be the reward for her early-morning restraint. Scott shared a room at work with two others. The room was at the back of the building – only the senior partners’ and the boardroom looked out on the river – and they needed to have the lights on, even in summer, on account of the new building behind it being constructed so close that Scott and his colleagues could see if the people working across the way were playing games on their computers. They had been provided with blinds, heavy vertical panels of translucent plastic, but by tacit agreement the three of them found it more amusing to have the blinds at their widest setting, giving a clear view into the opposite office. In any case, there were some good-looking girls in the opposite office, and, for Scott’s gay colleague, Henry, there was a particular guy, who, Henry knew, just knew, was aware of being watched and liked it. When Donna came into the office, it was empty. She had checked that both Henry and Adrian were at the Law Courts that morning, and she had reckoned on finding Scott alone. She had spent ten minutes in front of the mirror in the Ladies on her floor, and was planning to breeze in, kiss Scott’s cheek, wink, say something like, ‘Just fabulous,’ and then swing out again, leaving a seductive and tantalizing breath of Trésor on the air, which would drive him to seek her out later in the day and hint that she might like to cook him supper. But Scott’s
47 chair was empty. His jacket was not even on the back of it. But his screen was on, and his mobile – not one she recognized – was lying in the chaos of papers across his desk. There was also a tall takeaway cup – cold, when she touched it – and a half-eaten Snickers bar, the wrapper peeled roughly back like a banana skin. Donna sat down in his chair. The document on his screen showed a series of mathematical calculations, one column entirely in red, and was no doubt something to do with one of the VAT cases in which he was becoming something of a specialist. If Scott had taken his jacket, he’d gone to do more than have a pee, but if he hadn’t taken his phone then he hadn’t left the building. Donna sighed. If he came back and found her in his chair, he would be able to assume the initiative in any future development between them, and that was absolutely not what Donna wanted. From past experience, Donna knew that, if Scott had the initiative, he just left it lying about without using it until it ran out of its vital initial energy, and simply expired. She lifted one leg and flexed her foot. What a waste of spending all morning in four-inch heels it might turn out to be. On the desk in front of her, Scott’s phone be eped twice and jerked itself sideways. Donna leaned forward so that she could see the screen. ‘One message received’, the screen said. Donna hesitated. She glanced at the doorway. Then she stretched her arm out and touched Select. ‘Amy’, said the message box. Donna uncrossed her legs and sat straighter. She touched again. ‘Sorry about that,’ Amy had written. Donna peered at the screen. That was all there was. ‘Sorry about that.’ No signing off, no x’s, no initial. She scrolled down. Nothing but a mobile number and the time of the message. Sorry about what? Donna put the phone down. She stood up. She felt, abruptly, sick and angry and guilty. She also felt consumed by disappointment, waves of it, rolling and crashing over her in just the way they had when Scott had told her that she was a fantastic fuck but that didn’t mean he loved her, because he didn’t. She walked – with difficulty, her knees seeming to have locked rigid with shock – to the window. Ten feet and two windows away, a girl in a short skirt and knee boots was perched on the edge of a man’s desk, and he was leaning back in his chair with his fingers interlaced behind his head, and they clearly were not talking about the cost of insurance of cars with twolitre engines. Donna felt hot tears spring up and flood her eyes. She swallowed hard and tossed her hair back. No crying, she told herself. No crying and no softness over what her Irish father would have called feckin’ Scott Rossiter. ‘Oh, hi,’ Scott said from the doorway. Donna whirled round. He was in his suit, but looking slightly dishevelled, and he had a plastic cup of water in each hand. Donna glared at him. ‘Who is Amy?’ she demanded. ‘Look,’ Scott said later, stretched on his sofa and r eplete with a Thai green curry Donna had made with real lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves purchased in her lunch hour, despite the four-inch heels. ‘Look. That was great, last night was great, but I am completely bushed and you’ve got to go now.’ Donna had kicked her shoes off. She had removed the jacket of her work suit and r eplaced it with a little wrap cardigan that tied meaningfully under her bosom, of which she was proud. She looked at the remaining wine in her glass. ‘I’m not suggesting a r epeat of last night,’ Donna said. Scott r epressed a groan. ‘But it’s nice,’ Donna said, still looking at the wine and not at Scott, ‘to have a bit of support at family times like this. Nice for you.’ Scott said nothing. ‘It’s a comfort,’ Donna said. ‘It’s a comfort not to be alone.’ Scott closed his eyes. Then he made a huge effort and swung himself upright. He looked directly at Donna. ‘I want to be alone,’ Scott said. Donna regarded her wine in
48 silence. ‘You’re right, it is a family time,’ Scott said. ‘But it’s my family and my difficulties, and you don’t know any of them.’ Donna let a small pause fall, and then she said, ‘But I could.’ Scott stood up. His clothes were de eply rumpled. ‘No.’ Donna leaned forward very slowly and put her wine glass down among the dirty plates on the coffee table. She said, ‘I thought you said Amy was just your kid half-sister.’ ‘She is.’ ‘Who you’ve seen but never spoken to exc ept on the phone.’ ‘Correct.’ ‘Then why are you making such a big deal about this piano and Amy and everyone? Why do you have to do anything about her or anyone else, exc ept your mother? Why don’t you want me to help you? ‘Because,’ Scott said, looking down at her, ‘it’s none of your business.’ ‘Thank you!’ Donna cried. She waved wildly at the curry plates. ‘After all I’ve—’ ‘I didn’t ask you to!’ Scott shouted. ‘I didn’t ask you to snoop round my office and check my phone! I didn’t ask you to be a shoulder to cry on because I don’t want one, I don’t need one, I never have, my family is my business and always has been and I’ll deal with it my way and on my own as I always have!’ Donna leaned out of her chair and found her shoes. She put them on and stood up, with difficulty. She said, ‘I think it’s disgusting, getting fixated on an eighteen-year-old, especially if she’s your half-sister.’ ‘I’m not fixated,’ Scott said, ‘I’m just trying to get this bloody piano to Newcastle. And before you start spreading the news that I’m some sort of perv, let me tell you something, something that’s none of your bloody business, but I’ll tell you to stop you making mucky trouble. When my father left, Donna, there was no one to comfort me. Yes, there was my mother but she was in her own bad place and, anyway, she wasn’t a child like me, his child, I was on my own there. And all I’m trying to do now, Donna, is to help Amy a bit because I know what it’s like. I’m trying to do for her just a little of what no one did for me. OK? Get it?’ Donna turned to look at him. Her eyes were huge. ‘I just love it,’ she said softly, ‘when you play the piano.’ Scott closed his eyes. He clenched his fists. He heard Donna’s heels approaching, not quite steadily, across the wooden floor, and then felt her wine- and food-scented lips on his cheek for what was plainly intended to be a significant number of seconds. Then the lips were removed, and the heels tapped unevenly away across the floor, paused to open the door, tapped outside and let the door bang behind them. Scott let out a long, noisy breath and opened his eyes. Then he fell back on to the sofa and lay there, gazing at the girders of the ceiling and resolutely refusing to let his brain change out of neutral. His phone be eped. He picked it up and eyed the inbox warily. Donna. She could hardly have left the building. ‘Grow up Scottie. U R 37 not 7. Little girls not the answer.’ He deleted the message and struggled to sit up. The mess on the table re volted him, the mess of the last twenty-four hours re volted him, the mess he still seemed brilliant at getting himself into re volted him beyond anything. He looked at his phone again and retrieved Amy’s message. She’d said once that she played the flute. Scott got up and went to the window and looked at his view, glittering under a night sky. He stared out into the darkness, at the lines of light the cars made, at the dramatic glow of the Tyne Bridge. There was something very – well, clean was the word that came to mind, about picturing his half-sister – yes, she was his half-sister – with her hair down her back, playing her flute. He closed his eyes again, and rested his mind on this mental image, with relief. ‘I think,’ Chrissie said, ‘that we need to talk.’ She closed Amy’s bedroom door behind her. Amy was on her bed, propped up against the headboard, with her flute in her hands. She hadn’t been playing anything in particular, just fiddling about with a few pop tunes, but
49 it had been absorbing enough to prevent her from hearing Chrissie coming up the stairs, and when the handle of the door turned she’d given a little jump, and her flute had knocked against her teeth. ‘Ow,’ Amy said, rubbing. Chrissie took no notice. She turned Amy’s desk chair round so that it was facing the bed, and sat down in it. She was wearing camel-coloured trousers and a camel-coloured sweater and a rope of pearls. She looked extremely considered and absolutely exhausted. ‘Now,’ Chrissie said, ‘what is going on?’ Amy polished her flute on her T-shirt sleeve. ‘Nothing.’ Chrissie looked up at the skylight. ‘Tamsin tells me you spoke to Scott about moving the piano to Newcastle.’ ‘Sort of,’ Amy said. ‘He rang you.’ ‘Yes,’ Amy said. ‘How,’ Chrissie said, ‘did he know your number?’ Amy put the flute down beside her, and laid her hands flat on the duvet. She looked directly at Chrissie. ‘Because I rang him once.’ ‘And why did you do that?’ Amy thought for a moment. She was conscious of a dangerous energy beginning to surge up inside her, an energy compounded of apprehension at Chrissie’s imminent anger and distress, and excitement at defending her own position. She said slowly, ‘It was an impulse.’ ‘Inspired by what?’ ‘Newcastle,’ Amy said truthfully. ‘Newcastle?’ ‘I Googled it.’ She got off the bed and reached up to slide the envelope from behind the Duffy poster. ‘And I also found this.’ Chrissie took the envelope and opened it. Amy watched her. Chrissie glanced at the photograph, and then held it and the envelope out to Amy. ‘Please put that away.’ ‘It’s Dad!’ Amy said. ‘I know it’s Dad.’ ‘But—’ ‘Look,’ Chrissie said, suddenly agitated. ‘Look. I know he came from Newcastle. I know he was born on North Tyneside. I know his parents struggled for money and his mother adored him. I know all that. But I can’t bear to know it. After everything that’s happened, after everything he’s done and we’ve discovered, all his life in the North, all his loyalties in the North just seem like a betrayal to me. Perhaps you can’t feel it because he never let you down, but, Amy, having you talk to that man, having you making plans with that man, and without telling me, just makes me feel worse, it makes me feel that I can’t trust you, that you’re taking sides with people whose existence has made my life so difficult for so long and stopped me having what I really wanted, what I should have had, I should, I should.’ Amy sat down on the edge of the bed and held the photograph between her hands. ‘I wasn’t making plans.’ ‘But you were, about the piano, Tamsin—’ ‘Tamsin answered my phone,’ Amy said. ‘I was in the loo, and she answered my phone.’ Chrissie began to wind her pearls in and out of her fingers. ‘Did you hear a word I’ve just said?’ Amy nodded. ‘Do you have any idea of what I’ve been through?’ Amy looked up. ‘Of course.’ ‘Then how can you? How can you talk to that man about the piano behind my back?’ ‘He’s not that man,’ Amy said, ‘he’s Dad’s son. He’s our half-brother.’ ‘Don’t you care at all?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘You said that already.’ ‘Mum,’ Amy said, suddenly allowing the dangerous energy to spurt out like hot liquid, ‘Mum, it’s not all about you, it’s not all about Tam or Dilly, or me, either, it’s about other people too, who never did you any harm exc ept by existing, which they couldn’t help, and who didn’t ask for the piano or expect the piano, they just politely wondered when it would suit you to have them arrange for it to go. Don’t take your anger at Dad out on them, it isn’t fair, it isn’t OK, it isn’t like you.’ ‘Amy! ’ Amy slid the photograph back into the envelope. ‘How dare you,’ Chrissie said. ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ Amy’s head drooped. She felt the energy drain away and be r eplaced by a tremendous desire to cry. She put the back of her hand up against her mouth and pressed. She was not going to cry in front of her mother. Chrissie stood up. ‘I
50 want you to think about what I’ve just said to you. I want you to think about family loyalty. I want you to use your emotional intelligence and feel the shock this has all been.’ She moved to the door and put her hand on the knob. ‘Amy? ’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Will you?’ Amy nodded. Chrissie turned the doorknob and went out into the little landing outside, not closing the door behind her. Amy waited a few moments and then she tipped backwards on to her bed, and rolled towards the wall, her knees drawn up, the photograph in its envelope held against her chest. Only then, as quietly as she could, did she allow herself to cry.