‘When?’
‘Soon.’
Robbie let go of her, and sat on the edge of the bed.
‘Tam, you’ve said that for months. Months. Now your house is on the market, you’ve got your cupboard, you’re redesigning my life. What are you waiting for?’
Tamsin turned round. She looked out of the window, and then back at Robbie. She said, ‘Mum’s been offered a job.’
‘Great!’
Tamsin began to pul her hair tighter into its ponytail.
‘I don’t know.’
‘What don’t you know?’
‘It’s not a very good job—’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a receptionist.’
Robbie waited a moment. He tried not to be distracted by the implications of having her standing there, in his bedroom, in front of the cupboard he had designed and made for her.
He said, ‘But you’re a receptionist.’
‘Yes,’ Tamsin said.
‘But—’
‘What would Dad think?’ Tamsin said. ‘What would Dad think to have Mum working for less than she’s worth, as a receptionist?’
Robbie thought. His memory of Richie was of a genial, hospitable man who lived for his girls and his particular kind of music. His mother had been a fan of Richie Rossiter, and that had meant he was pretty daunted when he first went round to meet him. But in the flesh, Richie wasn’t daunting. Richie was easy, unaffected and friendly. He was, if Robbie had to admit it, one of the least snobbish people Robbie had ever met, and a great deal less snobbish than his own parents, who stil took an embarrassing pride in the fact that he went to work in a suit.
‘It’s a chain-store suit,’ he’d say to his mother. ‘It’s not exactly Savile Row.’
‘I think,’ he said now to Tamsin, ‘that he wouldn’t give a toss.’
Tamsin folded her arms. Then she unfolded them and smoothed down her immaculate cotton sweater.
‘What?’ Robbie said.
Tamsin shook her head mutely.
‘It may not be worth much,’ Robbie said, ‘but with you here, and Dil y working, it’s better money than nothing. Isn’t it?’
‘Maybe,’ Tamsin said.
‘Don’t you want her to work?’
‘Yes—’
‘Tamsin?’
‘What—’
‘Don’t you want her to do what you do?’
‘It upsets things,’ Tamsin said. ‘It doesn’t feel right.’
Robbie reached out and took her nearest hand. He adopted the tone his father used when his mother was being unreasonable, an affectionate but slightly teasing tone.
‘Hey, Tam, you’re the practical one, you’re the one trying to move things on—’
She didn’t look at him.
‘Only in the
‘Which is?’
‘Something managerial. Like she’s always had. I mean, this isn’t exactly aspirational, is it? She says it’s al she can get right now, and any job is to be welcomed at the moment, but I think she should go on looking. I mean, is she taking this just because Mr Leverton’s been kind to her?’
Robbie stood up. He took her other hand as wel .
‘What do your sisters think?’
Tamsin gave a little snort.
‘What suits them, of course.’
Robbie waited a moment, then he dropped Tamsin’s hands and put his arms around her once more. He rested his cheek against the side of her head, and his gaze on the peppermint-green cupboard, mental y fil ing it with Tamsin’s clothes.
‘Why don’t you,’ he said softly, ‘just let them get on with it then, and come and live with me?’
