you are offered and ask about among your friends for a room in someone’s flat—’
Dil y gave a little gasp.
‘And discover,’ Chrissie said firmly, ‘the satisfaction of standing on your own two feet. I’l help you as much as I can, but I’m not suggesting you live with me for exactly the reasons I gave Tamsin. It won’t be easy, but we won’t get trapped in resentment, in the past, either. We are al going to try and make something of our lives and of our relationship. I don’t actual y think our relationship would survive living together. Do you?’ She stopped again, and looked at them. She seemed suddenly to be on the edge of tears. The girls were gazing back at her, but neither of them was crying.
‘And so,’ Chrissie said, not at al steadily, ‘I intend to live in that flat on my own after the house is sold. You’l be so welcome there, any time, but you won’t be living there. You’l be living your own lives, lives where you can begin to put the past behind you, where it belongs. Elsewhere.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
Margaret had done what Scott caled getting them in. She was at one of the low tables with armchairs, in the first-floor bar of the hotel overlooking the river, and she had ordered a gin and tonic for herself, and a bottle of Belgian beer for Scott, and it was very pleasant sitting there, with the early-evening sun shining on the river and the great bulk of the Baltic on the further shore with some daft modern-art slogan on a huge banner plastered to its side. Amazing what people thought they could get away with, amazing what people put up with, amazing to think of the contrasts. There was the pretentious nonsense al over the Baltic – it had just been a flour mil when Margaret was growing up – and then, at the other end of the scale, there was the old Baptist church in Tynemouth, now deconsecrated and a warren of gimcrack little shops with Mr Lee’s Tattooing Parlour right under the old church window which said ‘God is love’ in red-and-white glass. Just thinking about it made Margaret want to snort.
‘Penny for them, Mam,’ Scott said, dropping into the chair opposite her.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you wouldn’t want to know.’ She waved a hand at the Baltic. ‘That rubbish, for starters—’
‘He’s a serious artist,’ Scott said, ‘and if you don’t behave, I’l take you to see his video instal ation.’
‘You wil not—’
‘Amy liked it,’ Scott said.
Margaret’s expression gentled.
‘Amy — ’
Scott grinned.
‘She’s texting, al the time.’
Margaret said, ‘Dawson liked her. Even Dawson. He won’t sit on just anyone’s lap.’
‘We’ve al gone a bit soft on Amy—’
‘Wel ,’ Margaret said more briskly, ‘she’s got work to do.’
‘She’l do it.’
‘She’s not very practised. She’s been sheltered. Over-sheltered. She thinks money’s just pocket money. She doesn’t know anything about money
—’
‘She knows enough to get Mr Harrison to give her a job.’
‘Nonsense,’ Margaret said.
Scott pul ed out his phone, and pressed a few buttons. Then he held the phone out to his mother.
‘Read that.’
Margaret leaned forward, putting on her reading glasses. She peered at the screen. She said, ‘So he says there’s work for her. I doubt it. He’l only have her fetching coffee.’
‘She won’t mind that. She’l be learning. She’l get to see his acts. She’l be performing. She can sing.’
Margaret leaned back.
‘I know she can sing. It’s not much of a voice yet but it’s in tune—’
‘Bang on the note.’
‘Don’t make a fool of yourself over her, pet,’ Margaret said.
Scott took a swal ow of his beer. He grinned at his mother.
‘She’s on a mission to find me a girlfriend.’
‘Good luck to her.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Scott said, ‘I don’t mind if she manages it—’
‘What’s got into you?’
Scott raised his beer bottle towards his mother.
‘Same as you.’
‘I’m just as I was,’ Margaret said.
‘No, you’re not.’
‘I’m—’
