‘Did you think I’d refuse to speak to you?’
‘No.’
‘I might have. We didn’t exactly get a welcome, Mam and me.’
‘No,’ Amy said again. ‘What did you expect?’
‘OK,’ Scott said. ‘OK.’ He tried to picture her in detail. Tal ish, slim, long dark hair down her back. But he couldn’t remember her face, only that when he and Margaret confronted the four of them outside the church she was the only one who hadn’t looked daggers.
She said, ‘I’m supposed to be revising. I’m always supposed to be revising.’
‘A levels? ’
‘Don’t mention them.’
He turned his back to the window and regarded the swept space where the piano would stand.
He said, ‘You play an instrument?’
‘Flute,’ she said.
He looked at the ceiling.
‘Nice,’ he said.
‘And you? ’
‘Piano,’ he said. ‘Not wel .’
‘Then you—’
‘Yes,’ he said. He let his gaze drop back to the floor. ‘Yes, I’l play it here.’
She said, ‘I’d better go—’
‘Someone come in?’
‘No, I just think—’
‘Why did you ring, Amy?’ Scott said. ‘Why did you ring me?’
‘I was thinking,’ Amy said, ‘about Dad. My dad.’
‘Our dad. Was that why?’
‘Do you miss him?’
‘I don’t know,’ Scott said. ‘I hardly saw him after I was fourteen.’
‘Yeah,’ Amy said, very quietly.
‘Wel , is that why you rang? Because he was my dad too and you knew he didn’t see me?’
‘Are you angry about that?’
There was a silence.
‘Sorry,’ Amy said. ‘I shouldn’t have asked that.’
‘The answer’s yes,’ Scott said.
Amy said softly, ‘Me too. About other things.’
‘I’ve never said it out loud,’ Scott said. ‘Not for twenty-odd years. I’ve just let it stew around in my head.’
‘Yes,’ Amy said in a whisper.
‘And then you ask me—’
Amy said, more clearly, ‘I don’t know why I rang. I just thought I would. It was in my mind and it was bugging me, so I did.’
‘Wil it bug you again?’
‘You could ring me,’ Amy said. ‘It doesn’t have to be me. You could phone.’
‘I don’t think so—’
‘I’m going,’ Amy said. ‘I’m going to ring off.’
‘Cheers,’ Scott said. He waited. Amy said nothing. Then he heard her phone go dead. ‘Bye,’ Scott said, with exaggerated emphasis, into the ether. ‘Bye. Thanks for cal ing.’
He threw his phone across the space of the floor on to the sofa, and put his hands into his stil -damp hair, ruffling it up into spikes. What had al that been about?
Amy got down on to the floor and crouched there, holding her knees, pushing her eye sockets against them. She stayed there for some time, just breathing and waiting for the bones of her skul to press against the bones of her kneecaps until they were more painful than merely uncomfortable, and then she unrol ed herself slowly and stood up and stretched until her fingertips touched the sloping ceiling above her bed. She had taped a big picture of Duffy up there, wearing a red-and-black jumper and a lot of eye make-up, posed against a brick wal and looking pretty panicky. It was a look that Amy could often identify with.
She bent to pick up her phone from the carpet, and put it in her jeans pocket, leaving the charm she had attached to it – a blue glitter dolphin –
