‘Ladies and gentleman. Brothers and sisters. “The Rose Of Al andale”.’
They bought burgers on their way home, and carried the hot polystyrene boxes in the lift up to Scott’s flat. The flat was dim, lit only by the summertime night glow from the city coming through the huge window, and Scott didn’t switch any lights on, just let Amy walk in, and drop her bag on the floor randomly, just the way he dropped his work bag, and wander down the room, running her hand over the piano as she passed it, to stand, as he so often did, and stare out at the lights and the shining dark river far below and the great gleaming bulk of the Sage on the further shore.
She’d hardly spoken on the way home. He’d rung for a taxi while she was buying the CDs of the groups they’d heard, and she’d climbed in beside him in a silence he was perfectly happy to accommodate. In fact, he respected it, was gratified by it, and when, as they were crossing the river, almost home, and Scott had asked the driver to drop them off so that they could pick up something to eat, she had said suddenly, ‘Oh, I want to be her!’, he had had to restrain himself from putting his arms round in her in a heartfelt gesture of understanding and pleasure. Instead, with an effort, he’d asked her if she wanted a burger or a kebab, and when she didn’t answer, when it became plain that she had hardly heard him, he almost laughed out loud.
‘D’you want to eat standing there?’
She turned, very slowly.
‘Where – where are you going to eat?’
He gestured.
‘Where I usual y do. On the sofa.’
She came away from the window.
‘Wil you play for me?’
‘What, the piano?’
‘What else?’
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Maybe tomorrow. Maybe we’l both play tomorrow.’
She sat down on the sofa. He handed her a box.
‘Want a plate?’
‘No.’
‘Good girl. Eat up. What have you had today – coffee and crisps?’
‘My favourite,’ Amy said.
She opened the box and looked at her burger. She sighed.
‘I want to be her.’
‘I know.’
‘I want—’
‘Wait,’ Scott said, ‘wait. You’ve work to do first.’
She glanced up.
‘What work?’
‘Exploring.’
She lifted the burger out and inspected it.
‘What are we going to do tomorrow?’
‘What are
‘What?’
‘I’m sending you off,’ Scott said. ‘I’m sending you on a little journey of discovery.’
Amy stared at him. He winked at her.
‘You’l see,’ he said, and wedged his burger in his mouth.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Chrissie had never felt quite at home in Sue’s kitchen. It wasn’t the disorder realy, or the noise – the television never seemed to be switched off –
but more a sense that Sue’s children and Kevin were so intent upon their own robust and random lives that her presence there meant no more than if a new chair or saucepan had been added to the mix.
Sue herself seemed oblivious. The muddle of people and purposes, of washing-up and lunch boxes, of newspapers and flyers and scribbled notes, wasn’t something she strove for, but rather something she simply didn’t notice. She had absently moved a footbal boot, a magazine and an empty crisp packet from a chair in order that Chrissie could sit down, in a manner that suggested that sitting down wasn’t necessarily a chair’s function in the first place.
‘Can I turn that off?’
‘What?’ Sue said. She was polishing a wine glass with a shirt lying on top of a pile in a laundry basket.
‘The TV,’ Chrissie said.
‘Course. I’ve stopped hearing it. I’ve stopped hearing most things, especial y anybody under sixteen asking for
