The Other Family

been asked to go up to Newcastle when the exams are over.

I’ve been invited. To see where Dad grew up. And things.’

There was a silence. Chrissie picked up her mug, drank, and put it down again. She looked at the flowers. Then she looked at Amy.

‘Who invited you?’

‘Scott,’ Amy said. She was sitting up very straight now, her hair tucked behind her ears.

‘When did you speak to him?’

‘He left a message,’ Amy said, ‘to wish me luck in the exams, and so I rang him back, and he was playing the piano and he said he’d send me the train ticket to come up to see the places Dad knew. And see the piano. Where it is now. And I said yes.’

‘You said you would go—’

‘Yes,’ Amy said, ‘I said yes, I’l come.’

Chrissie took another swal ow of tea.

‘This – is very hard.’

‘I’m not going for ever. I’m going for a few days.’

‘Where wil you stay?’

Amy said, ‘In his flat, I should think.’

‘I don’t think you can stay in his flat—’

‘Where I stay,’ Amy said, ‘is a detail. The point is, I’m going. I’m going to Newcastle.’

‘You realize—’

‘ Yes,’ Amy said. She sounded as if she was reining in considerable impatience. ‘Yes, I realize this is awful for you, but this has nothing to do with my loyalty to you, that’s a given, that’s there whatever happens, but I real y, really want to see where Dad came from, where half of me comes from.

Can’t you just try and understand that?’

Chrissie closed her eyes.

‘I am trying—’

‘OK.’

‘Those people—’

‘Don’t cal them that,’ Amy said sharply.

‘You might like it up there—’

Amy sighed. She put a hand out and squeezed Chrissie’s arm.

‘Yes, I might. But I’m your daughter and I grew up here.’

Chrissie gave herself a shake.

‘I know.’ She glanced at Amy. ‘I never thought you’d want to.’

‘That’s unfair—’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes,’ Amy said, ‘you know it is.’

‘Darling, it’s just that I—’

Amy put her hands over her ears.

‘Sorry, Mum, but don’t say it. Don’t say it again. We know how it is for you. It isn’t much of a picnic for us either.’

‘No.’

‘OK, then?’

‘About Newcastle?’

‘Yes.’

Chrissie said reluctantly, ‘I suppose so.’

‘Good,’ Amy said. She picked up her tea mug. ‘Because I’m going, anyway.’

Sitting on the tube on the way back from col ege, Dil y read Craig’s text probably twenty-five times.

‘Sorry babe,’ it started, and then, without any punctuation, it went on, ‘sorry cant do friday sorry cant do have a nice life,’ and two kisses. Of course she knew, at about the second reading, what he was trying to say, trying to tel her, but it wasn’t until she read it ten more times, scrol ing endlessly back to the beginning, that she al owed herself to realize that she was, unceremoniously, being dumped. That Craig, lazy, undependable, fanciable Craig, was taking the ultimately cowardly way out of an unwanted situation and was tel ing her that their relationship, as far as he was concerned, was over – by text.

Once she had permitted ful recognition of both his message and his conduct, Dil y waited to fal to pieces.