But Gabriella’s part of the family now. Any incipient lust Marcus might passingly have felt has long since dissipated, exorcized by damp towels left on bathroom floors, Gabriella playing twee lo-fi rock at ear-bleeding volume, Gabriella never putting the milk back in the sodding fridge.
She comes in carrying a big Pyrex bowl of hot microwave popcorn, plonks it down on the sofa next to her.
She says, ‘We had another phone call tonight.’
Marcus concentrates on the screen. On the second lap of Coconut Mall he keeps driving his avatar the wrong way up the escalator. ‘Not him again?’
‘I don’t know. I guess. It was a girl this time though.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Kind of threat-type things.’
‘What kind of threat-type things?’
‘I don’t really know. She sounded drunk or something. I think she was maybe crying.’
Mia says, ‘Was it your boyfriend again?’
‘Yes,’ says Gabriella.
‘He’s crazy,’ Mia says.
‘He is.’
‘Crazy in lurve,’ says Mia.
Marcus bites down on his irritation. He gives Gabriella a look: Let’s talk about this later.
Mia says, ‘What time’s Mum coming home?’
‘She’s on her way,’ Marcus tells her. ‘She’s bringing KFC.’
‘Yuck.’
‘Daniel chose.’
‘Daniel always chooses.’
She sticks out her tongue and makes a gagging noise. Marcus gently cuffs the back of her head and says, ‘Behave.’
‘I am behaving. I just don’t want KFC. It’s all greasy and there’s all these veins. I want to be a vegetarian.’
‘We could go and cook you an omelette?’
‘Let’s finish this level,’ Mia says.
‘Fine. What do you want in your omelette?’
‘Just cheese.’
‘There’s some nice bacon.’
‘ Meh. Just cheese.’
‘Salad?’
‘Have we got them little tomatoes?’
‘ Those little tomatoes. I think so.’
‘Then I’ll have some salad. Did I tell you I like beetroot?’
‘Since when?’
‘I had some at Fiona’s house. It was really nice. Not slimy. Have we got any?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Can we get some next time we go to the shops?’
‘Absolutely.’
They finish the level. Mia wins. Her Mii is called Giant Wonder Mia.
Gabriella asks if they want help in the kitchen. Marcus tells her no; this is a little bit of father-daughter time.
Marcus and Mia step into the kitchen together. She’s still young enough to hold his hand as they go.
The kitchen is big and bright. The windows are black mirrors. They spend a lot of time in here.
Mia takes some eggs from the box, cracks them into a Pyrex dish. Marcus goes hunting for the frying pan. He doesn’t find it in the drawer. It’s in the dishwasher, residually warm from this morning’s cycle.
He spritzes it with sunflower oil, puts it on the hob.
Mia grabs a fork and mixes the eggs. The trick is to fold them, not beat them. She sprinkles in a little salt, a good dash of pepper. She likes pepper.
She hears the key in the lock. The front door opens. It’s a sound as familiar to her as the sound of her own heartbeat; Mia was born in this house, in a birthing pool in the dining room.
She’s never lived anywhere else. It’s a big house, a bit messy. But she loves it and never wants to leave. She’s eleven years old, and home is heaven.
Gabriella shovels popcorn into her mouth and watches an episode of The Biggest Loser recorded on Sky Plus.
Gabriella never puts on weight; it doesn’t matter what she eats. Partly because of this, The Biggest Loser is one of her favourite shows. She enjoys watching it while snacking on popcorn or ice cream or, once, a six-pack of doughnuts. The crystals of sugar at the edge of her lips, her fingers sticky with it, while shame-faced, dirigible-sized husbands, wives and daughters took to the scales like prisoners about to be executed.
But Steph disapproves of The Biggest Loser. Steph disapproves of all reality shows. She doesn’t mind if Gabriella watches them, as long as the kids aren’t around.
Gabriella thinks this is bullshit, but she doesn’t have Sky Plus in her room — despite the dropping of some fairly heavy hints on deaf ears.
Steph takes a detour to the KFC drive-through, tries to pay with an expired debit card: she forgot to replace it with the new one that arrived about three weeks ago. So has to hunt round her receipt-stuffed purse to find cash.
They drive the rest of the way in silence, Dan’s shoulders tense with the scale of his mortification, the greasy bucket in its plastic carrier bag balanced on his narrow lap.
Steph doesn’t notice the car driving two or three places behind them.
She’s experienced moments of urban terror: she’s been burgled more than once — most recently less than a year ago. (She thought for a while that her house keys had been stolen. In fact, they turned up on her kitchen table as if placed there by a poltergeist.)
And she’s had a few dodgy phone calls. The most recent sequence of them, she was relieved and strangely chagrined to learn, were from a lovelorn kid called Will who nursed a obsessional crush on Gabriella the Gorgeous.
Steph was distressed, and slightly vexed by young Will’s lovelorn want of imagination. But a few difficult phone calls — first to the boy himself, and several to the police — soon put things right.
She’s passed him on the high street several times since then. He says hello and drops his eyes and moves on. Steph feels sorry for him now, sorry for the embarrassment his uncontrolled love caused him. Letting teenagers fall in love is like letting them drive sports cars. There’s far too much power in the engine.
She parks across the road, relieved to see the house, the lights on. She regrets her spontaneous offer of fried chicken because it smells and because it’s terrible for you and because she loves the chips, dusted with salt and dipped in glutinous, just-warm-enough chicken gravy. And she knows she’ll overcompensate tomorrow, have a tiny breakfast, a salad for lunch. And then, around 3.30, she’ll get cranky and overcompensate again with a fat slice of carrot cake. She’ll be revisited by guilt and she’ll eat nothing for dinner except perhaps some noodles. She’ll go to bed with a headache.
She slots the key in the lock, and turns it. She opens the door a crack.
She turns her head, to hurry Dan along. Even in the rain, he’s dawdling. ‘Hurry up,’ she says, ‘it’s getting cold.’
Two men are walking just behind Dan’s shoulder.
Steph doesn’t know them. But at once, she knows them completely. One of them is young and handsome and scared. The other is compact and strutting, with hair in a neat parting.
Nazi hair, she thinks. That’s what they called kids with hair like that when she was at school.
Both men are wearing backpacks.
Dan turns to follow her appalled gaze. The smaller man swings something. It’s an aluminium baseball bat. He
