The Other Family

Dil y took her hand away from her face. She said, ‘It’s just, wel , wil you – wil we – be OK, wil we manage, wil we—’

There was a pause.

‘I don’t think,’ Chrissie said, ‘that we’l be OK for quite a long time. Do you? I don’t think we can expect to be. There’s so much to get used to that we don’t real y want – to get used to. Isn’t there?’ She stopped. She looked round the table. Amy had broken a biscuit into several pieces and was jigsawing them back together again. Chrissie said, ‘But you know al that, don’t you? You know al that as wel as I do. You didn’t mean that, did you, you didn’t mean how are we going to manage emotional y, did you?’

‘It seems,’ Tamsin said, ‘so rubbish to even think of anything else—’

‘No,’ Chrissie said, ‘it’s practical. We have to be practical. We have to live. We have to go on living. That’s what Dad wanted. That’s what Dad worked for.’

Amy began to cry quietly onto her broken biscuit.

Chrissie retrieved Dil y’s hand and took Amy’s nearest one. She said, looking at Tamsin, gripping the others, ‘We’l be fine. Don’t worry. We have the house. And there’s more. And I’l go on working. You aren’t to worry. Anyway, it isn’t today’s problem. Today just has to be got through, however we can manage it.’

Tamsin was moving her tea mug round in little circles with her right hand and pressing her left into her stomach. She said, ‘We ought to tel people.’

‘Yes,’ Chrissie said, ‘we should. We must make a list.’

Tamsin looked up.

‘I might be moving in with Robbie.’

Dil y gave a smal scream.

‘Not now, darling,’ Chrissie said tiredly.

‘But I—’

‘Shut it!’ Amy said suddenly.

Tamsin shrugged.

‘I just thought if we were making plans, making lists—’

Amy leaned across the table. She hissed, ‘We were going to make a list of who to tel that Dad died last night. Not lists of who we were planning to shack up with.’

Chrissie got up from the table.

‘And the registrar,’ she said. She began to shuffle through the pile of papers by the telephone. ‘And the undertaker. And I suppose the newspapers. Always better to tel them than have them guess.’

Tamsin sat up straighter. She said, ‘What about Margaret?’

Chrissie stopped shuffling.

‘Who?’

‘Margaret,’ Tamsin said.

Amy and Dil y looked at her.

‘Tam—’

‘Wel ,’ Tamsin said, ‘she ought to be told. She’s got a right to know.’

Amy turned to look across the kitchen at Chrissie. Chrissie was holding a notebook and an absurd pen with a plume of shocking-pink marabou frothing out of the top.

‘Mum?’

Chrissie nodded slowly.

‘I know—’

‘But Dad wouldn’t want that!’ Dil y said. ‘Dad never spoke to her, right? She wasn’t part of his life, was she, he wouldn’t have wanted her to be part of – of—’ She stopped. Then she said angrily, ‘It’s nothing to do with her.’

Amy stood up and drifted down the kitchen again. Chrissie watched her, dark hair down her back, Richie’s dark hair, Richie’s dark Northern hair, only girl-version.

‘Amy? ’

Amy didn’t turn.

‘I shouldn’t have mentioned her,’ Tamsin said, ‘I shouldn’t. She’s no part of this.’

‘I hate her,’ Dil y said.

Chrissie said, making an effort, ‘You shouldn’t. She couldn’t help being part of his life before and she’s never made any claim, any trouble.’

‘But she’s there,’ Dil y said.

‘And,’ Amy said from the other end of the kitchen, ‘she was his wife.’

‘Was,’ Tamsin said.

Chrissie held the notebook and the feathered pen hard against her. She said, ‘I’m not sure I can quite ring her