The Other Family

‘She—’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Scott said, interrupting. ‘Don’t fool yourself. Giving up’s never the best way out of anything. I should know.’

‘I wish I hadn’t told you,’ Amy said.

Scott laughed. ‘Do you?’

‘I’m scared—’

‘Course you are. Exams are hideous.’

‘I wish,’ Amy said suddenly, ‘I wish I had something to look forward to, I wish it wasn’t just al this unravel ing, al this uncertainty.’

Scott’s gaze was resting on the great gleaming curve of the Sage Centre, across the river, its shining flank visible through the girders of the Tyne Bridge. He said thoughtful y, ‘I’l give you something.’

‘What?’

‘I’l give you something to look forward to. Wel , maybe looking forward is a bit strong, but something to think about, something a bit different.’

‘What?’ Amy said again.

‘When your exams are done,’ Scott said, ‘when you’re in that time after exams and you’re waiting for the results and trying not to think about them, why don’t you come up here?’

‘Come—’

‘Yes,’ Scott said. ‘Pack your flute and I’l give you the train ticket, and you come to Newcastle. I’l show you where Dad lived, when he was a kid. I’l show you where he came from. Tel your mother, so it’s al above board, and come up to Newcastle next month.’

There was a silence. Scott wondered if he could hear Amy breathing, or whether he just imagined he could. He pressed the phone to his ear and began to count. When he got to ten, he would say her name again. One, two, three, four—

‘OK,’ Amy said.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The flat was on the top two floors of a tal house close to Highgate School. The rooms were smal, with thin wals and creaky floorboards, but there were spectacular views eastwards, over a dramatical y sloping garden, and the rol ing roofscape of London al the way to the hazy blue lines of Essex. The owner of the house, a television producer, lived half his life in Los Angeles, and wanted a tenant who would be there permanently, paying the mortgage and justifying the investment in a building whose owner only occupied it for half the year.

Sue had found the flat. Or rather, Sue’s Kevin had found it while commissioning a new boiler his firm had put in for the owner. The owner happened to be there, a tal , bespectacled man with long grey hair, in a black T-shirt, and they had fal en into conversation while contemplating the boiler – ‘These new systems mean you can control the therms on your rads from here,’ Kevin explained – and the owner had mentioned that the top floors of the house were empty, and self-contained, and that he was looking for a tenant.

‘As you’re local,’ he said to Kevin, making it sound like a social condition, rather than a category, ‘you might know of someone.’

The rooms, apart from a cooker and a fridge and two aggressively modern chairs upholstered in leather, were empty. They were painted white and carpeted with narrow grey-and-black stripes, like the stripes of an expensive carrier bag. Chrissie looked round with the apprehension born of being confronted with something completely alien.

‘I haven’t lived in a flat since I met Richie—’

‘Look,’ Sue said, ‘it’s been weeks, months now. Richie didn’t die yesterday. You are stil waiting for probate. You can’t do anything major til then but you can start moving yourself.’

She was not going to be roused. She had said to Kevin that morning, drinking tea in the kitchen while he packed his customary lunch of carbohydrate and sugar, that she’d accompany Chrissie to the flat in the spirit of friendship but that she was not, not, going to involve herself in anything emotional again. If Chrissie threw a fit and said she couldn’t contemplate living anywhere like that, Sue would just let her throw it.

‘I’ve done enough, and look where the last lot got me. I’l show her and that’s that.’

Kevin came round the kitchen table, his canvas bag on his shoulder, and kissed her goodbye on the mouth. It was something she could always say for Kevin – he always kissed her hel o and goodbye and he always kissed her on the mouth.

‘Good luck,’ he said.

‘D’you think I shouldn’t be bothering?’

He considered for a second, then he said, ‘A mate’s a mate,’ and kissed her again, and she felt the brief glow of being approved of. Now, standing watching Chrissie trying to imagine herself in the flat’s sitting room with its uncompromising decor and wonderful view, she tried to recal that sensation of doing the right – but stil the sensible – thing.

‘It’s so different,’ Chrissie said.

‘Course it is.’

‘I don’t know about renting—’

Sue leaned against a wal and folded her arms. She said patiently, ‘We discussed that.’

‘I know—’