The Other Family

‘Where’s Mum?’

‘Out,’ Tamsin said. ‘I sent her out to have a drink with the Nelsons. Anything to get her away from the computer.’

‘And Dil y?’

‘Guess.’

Amy opened the fridge.

‘Want something?’

Tamsin shook her head careful y, so as not to dislodge the towel.

Amy took out a plastic box of pieces of cheese and a tomato and a caramel yoghurt, and put them on the table.

‘You been working?’ Tamsin said.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Al this time?’

Amy began to rummage in a cupboard.

‘It’s so boring—’

‘You’l break Mum’s heart if you screw these exams up.’

Amy dumped a col ection of cracker packets on the table, beside the cheese box.

‘Don’t say that!’

‘Wel ,’ Tamsin said, splaying the fingers of one hand and surveying them. ‘You’re the bright one. Dad always said that. I’m practical, Dil y’s decorative and daft, and you’re bright.’

Amy sat down at the table, holding a knife.

‘Get a plate,’ Tamsin said.

‘I’m just going,’ Amy said, ‘to put bits of cheese, Madam Fusspot, on crackers and eat them. I don’t need a plate.’

‘Get a plate,’ Tamsin said again.

Amy got up, sighing, and went to retrieve a plate from the cupboard, banging the door.

‘Tam—’

‘What?’

‘Tam, d’you ever think about when Dad was little? What his life was, when he was little?’

Tamsin looked at her other hand.

‘No.’

Amy took out a smal block of cheese and put it on the plate. Then she hacked an irregular chunk from one end.

‘I do.’

Tamsin shot her a glance.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Wel ,’ Amy said, ‘we don’t know anything about where he grew up, do we, we never went there, he never talked about it.’

‘He didn’t think about it,’ Tamsin said. ‘It was over.’

Amy balanced her cheese on a biscuit.

‘How do you know?’

‘We’d have known if he thought about it,’ Tamsin said. ‘But he didn’t. He didn’t want to know about it any more. He had a new life.’

Amy bit into her cheese. The biscuit broke and fragments scattered across the table.

Through her mouthful, she said indistinctly, ‘I do.’

Tamsin stopped painting. She glared at her sister.

‘ What?’

Amy swal owed the cheese.

‘I want to know about where Dad was born. I want to know about his life there.’

‘You can’t,’ Tamsin said flatly.

‘Why can’t I?’

‘You’d upset Mum.’

‘Why would I, I’m only wanting to know where Dad—’