The Other Family

extra shot, and he had been afraid that she was going to opt for tears rather than fury. But to her credit, she had neither wept nor shouted. In fact she’d said, after swal owing hard several times, ‘Wel , Scottie, I’l be thirty-six next October, so you can’t blame me for trying,’ and he’d squeezed her hand briefly and said, ‘I don’t. I just don’t want you to waste any more time or effort on me.’

She looked at him. She said, with a gal ant attempt at a smile, ‘Rather have a piano than a relationship, would you?’

He said, ‘At least you know where you are with a piano,’ and they’d grinned weakly at each other, and then she bent to pick up her bag and stood up and said she was off to see the girls from work to drown her sorrows. Or, as it was only Wednesday, to half drown them anyway. She bent and gave his cheek a quick brush with her own.

‘It was nice being wanted for my body—’

‘Great body,’ Scott said politely.

Then she had clicked out of the coffee bar on her heels and he had gone to the Asian supermarket and bought the ingredients for a proper meal.

Which he had now prepared, and cooked, and eaten. And washed up. He put the kettle on, to make a coffee, and then he strol ed down the length of his flat and contemplated the space he had cleared – but not swept, recently – where the piano would sit.

It was very, very wonderful to think that, within ten days, it would be sitting there, huge and shining and impregnated with memories and possibilities. Now that it was actual y on its way, Scott could permit himself to acknowledge how much he wanted it, how hard it had been to say that they should not let it go until they were ready to let it go. It had been hard, but it had been worth it, both because it gave Scott the sense of having behaved honourably in an awkward situation and because the joy of knowing it would soon be on its way north was so very intense by contrast.

The joy was, Scott thought, an unexpected bonus. It gave him an energy of pleasure that he couldn’t remember feeling about anything much for a very long time. The only element that tempered it – and Scott had not al owed himself to consider this ful y til now – was that a deception was being practised on Amy, and on her mother and older sister, in order that he might have the Steinway sitting where he was standing now, with the night view of the bridge, and the Gateshead shore shimmering away beyond, outside the uncurtained window.

Scott moved over to the window and leaned his forehead against the cold glass. He supposed that part of him felt that Amy’s mother and sister could look out for themselves. He had, after al , had no contact with them except cold looks at the funeral and an unpleasant brief telephone exchange with Tamsin. But Amy herself was another matter. Amy had had the guts to ring him, had spoken to him as if the bond between them didn’t just exist but should be respected and, for God’s sake, she was only eighteen, she was only a kid, but she had shown an independence of mind that would do credit to someone twice her age.

Scott took his phone out of his trouser pocket, and tossed it once or twice in his hand. If he rang her, and told her about Sue’s cal , she might wel flip and refuse to let him have the piano. He looked, for a long time, at the dusty space where the piano was going to sit. He walked across it, and then back again. He weighed his desire for it to be there against his peace of mind. He flipped his phone open, and dial ed Amy’s number.

Her phone rang four times, then five, then six. Then her voice said hurriedly, ‘This is Amy’s phone. I’l cal you back,’ and stopped, as if she had meant to leave more message, and suddenly couldn’t think what more to say.

Scott looked out at his view.

‘Amy,’ he said, ‘it’s Scott. I’m cal ing on Wednesday night. It’s about the piano. There’s something we should talk about. Could you cal me when you get this? Any time. I mean, any time.’

She rang back at ten past two in the morning. She sounded odd, but she said that was because she was under the duvet. Apart from being a bit muffled, her tone was normal, even neutral.

She said, ‘What is it? About the piano?’

Scott, lying back on his pil ow, his eyes stil closed from the deep sleep he’d been in, told her briefly about Sue’s cal .

‘Oh,’ Amy said.

‘Look,’ Scott said, ‘it doesn’t have to happen, not if you—’

‘It does have to happen. It’s not that—’

‘Not what?’

‘It’s not you having the piano—’

‘Oh,’ Scott said.

Amy said, ‘I’m glad.’

‘Are you? ’

‘Oh yes,’ she said.

He waited for her to ask if she’d woken him, but she didn’t. Instead, she said, ‘I won’t let my phone out of my sight now.’

‘No.’

There was a silence. He longed to say more but couldn’t initiate it.

Then she said, ‘Night-night. Thanks for tel ing me,’ and the line went dead. Scott looked at the clock beside his bed. Two-thirteen and he was awake now. Wide awake.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Tamsin was keeping her eyes and ears open. It was completely obvious, from the agents who were being summoned into the partners’ rooms and coming out looking as if they’d been hit with a bucket, that a fair number of redundancies were going on. There had been a confidential memo sent round saying that the present economic climate and resulting effect on the housing market meant that there inevitably had to be a certain amount of