We stayed sitting still for a second, staring at Dad. It was Grace who suddenly sprang into action, surprising all of us.

‘We should bang his chest and give him the kiss of life!’ she said, running round the table towards Dad.

She took hold of him fearfully, pulling him backwards into an upright position. Very bravely, she tilted his head, took a deep breath and blew into his mouth in a ghastly parody of a kiss.

We had never kissed Dad on his mouth in our lives.

Seeing my poor sister behaving so valiantly jerked me into action too.

‘An ambulance! I’ll dial nine nine nine,’ I said.

‘No, no, your dad won’t go to hospital,’ Mum wept, though Dad was clearly past arguing.

I dialled anyway. Someone at the end of the line asked me which service I wanted. I asked for an ambulance and gave our address.

‘I should have asked for the police too,’ I said. ‘So they could come and arrest me.’

‘Don’t be so silly,’ said Mum, rushing round, starting to clear the table. Her hand hovered over my pink and black lace underwear. ‘Take these, Prue, quick!’

I stuffed them in the pocket of my frock and went and stood beside Grace. I watched her labouring over Dad.

‘You’re doing it too quickly. And shouldn’t you pinch his nostrils?’

‘You do it, Prue,’ said Mum.

I had a go, although it was awful shoving my head so close to Dad, feeling his coarse moustache scratching my lips, his false teeth clunking against mine. I scooped them out, feeling I was violating my own father.

Mum tried too, though she seemed as reluctant as me. She kept stopping and peering at him fearfully, as if he was about to strike her for being so impertinent.

My cheek still throbbed from his slap. I started pacing up and down, peering out of the window for the ambulance, as if I could summon it up instantly by willpower.

‘Get . . . Dad’s . . . pyjamas,’ Mum gasped, in between breaths.

‘I’ll pack a case for him, Mum,’ Grace said quickly.

It seemed bizarre, finding nightclothes and a toothbrush and a flannel for someone who might already be dead. He still wasn’t moving at all, and his eyes were semi-shut. Mum hovered above him, bent over awkwardly, her head on his chest. I thought she might be hugging him, but she was listening for a heartbeat.

‘I think I can hear it. You listen, Prue. It is his heart, isn’t it?’

I couldn’t tell if the drumming in my ear was my own blood or his. I hated breathing in Dad’s stale old-book, old-sweat, old-jersey smell. His mouth was lopsided now, as if he was silently groaning. He looked like an old, old man.

‘Oh Dad,’ I said, and I started crying. ‘I didn’t mean to make you so angry. I’m sorry. Can you hear me? I’m so so sorry.’

There was a knock on the shop door downstairs. The ambulance people were here. They gently prised me off Dad and examined him carefully.

‘Is he dead?’ I sobbed.

‘No, no! He’s unconscious, dear, but he’s not dead. We’ll get him to hospital as soon as possible.’

‘He hates hospitals,’ said Mum.

‘Can’t help that, love. We can’t leave him here in this state. Are you coming with him?’

‘Yes, of course, he’s my husband.’

‘What about the girls? They’d best stay here.’

Mum looked at us, biting her lip.

‘Do you want me to come, Mum?’ I said.

Mum drew in her breath, hugging her huge chest, her hands hanging onto her elbows. ‘No, dear, you stay and look after Grace. I’ll ring you from the hospital. You be good girls and – and try not to worry.’

The ambulance people strapped Dad onto a stretcher and manoeuvred him out of the kitchen and down the stairs, Mum treading heavily behind with the carrier of his things. Grace and I followed them downstairs and through the shop, as if we were in some strange procession. We watched from the shop doorway as they slotted Dad’s stretcher into the ambulance and helped Mum clamber inside too.

The Chinese people stood on their restaurant doorstep, watching. They nodded at us sympathetically. ‘Your dad?’ they said, and the woman pointed to her heart.

When the ambulance drove off she asked us if we’d like to come and sit with them.

‘No, no, it’s very kind, but we’re fine,’ I said firmly.

Grace pushed me when we were back inside our own shop. ‘I wanted to see what their place is like. And they might have given us some chow mein and chop suey – I so want to know what it tastes like.’ Then she clapped her hands over her mouth. ‘I didn’t mean that. Dad’s right, I am a greedy guts. Oh Prue, this is all so awful. I can’t believe it, can you?’

‘Remember when we were little and Dad sent us to bed in disgrace and then we’d curl up and pretend to be different people?’

‘Yeah, I liked it best when I was Kylie Little Bum and you were Janet Air and I sang and you painted and we lived in our own penthouse flat,’ said Grace, sighing. ‘You’re always so good at making everything up.’

‘Maybe it isn’t good. It takes over from your real life and you start to believe it. Like when I bought the knickers and bra. I was pretending to be like the girls in the magazines and then when I argued with Dad I was kidding myself I was like little Jane Eyre standing up to Mr Brocklehurst – and yet look what I’ve done.’

‘He’ll get better, Prue. The ambulance people said he was just unconscious. So maybe he just fainted because he was so mad at you?’

‘Don’t be daft, Grace. He wasn’t just fainting,’ I said.

‘Well. Whatever. But it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t make him ill.’

‘I did, I did. I don’t know how I could have yelled back at him like that.’

‘I thought you were brave. I’d never dare. But I get on Dad’s nerves more than you do. It’s because I’m so fat and so stupid. No wonder he likes you best,’ Grace said, with no hint of resentment.

‘I think Dad’s the stupid one. You’re much much much nicer than me. You’d definitely be my favourite, Gracie,’ I said, and I put my arms round her.

We had a long hug and then broke away, looking at each other anxiously. The kitchen seemed spookily quiet in spite of the loud hum of our old fridge and the tick of the clock. We both watched the second hand edging its way round each numeral.

We’d rarely been in the house by ourselves. We’d frequently fantasized about days of freedom together but now we were too frightened and guilty to do anything but stand and stare.

‘When do you think Mum will come back?’ said Grace. She swallowed. ‘I mean, I know you don’t know either, but do you think she’ll be back by lunch time? And what should we do about the shop? Will we open it up?’

‘There’s not much point. How many customers do we get?’ I said.

I went to the waste bin and fished out all the bills. ‘Look, final demand, final demand. And – oh God, look at this one – they’re threatening to take Dad to court, Grace. I think he’s going to have to close the shop anyway, even if he gets better.’

‘But what will he do? Do you think he’ll publish his Magnum Whatsit?’

‘Oh, come on, Grace, he’s never going to finish it.’

I thought of Dad only an hour ago, admiring my Tobias and the Angel painting and telling me I could illustrate his precious book. I started howling.

‘Oh don’t, Prue! Dad will be all right, I’m sure he will be,’ Grace said, clutching me.

‘I was so mean to him. I let him down so. And if we’re really in all this debt it’s so awful that I spent all his tuition money. No wonder he was so cross. How must he have felt when I thrust my bra and knickers right in his face?’ I pulled them out of my pocket and tugged hard at them, but they wouldn’t rip. I rummaged in the kitchen cupboard for the scissors.

‘No! Don’t! I’ll have them if you don’t want them,’ Grace said quickly.

I stared at her.

‘I know they wouldn’t fit me, but I could just keep them like – like secret ornaments,’ she said. ‘They are so beautiful. Where did you get them from?’

‘Mallard and Turners. Their underwear department.’

‘You went there by yourself? You lucky thing!’

We looked at each other. We had the perfect opportunity to slip out now and go round all the forbidden shops, but of course we couldn’t.

‘We can’t go on a jaunt, not while Dad’s so ill or—’

‘I know,’ said Grace, sighing. ‘So what shall we do?’

‘Perhaps we ought to get on with our work, same as any other day. That’s kind of pleasing Dad, isn’t it?’

So we cleared the kitchen table and got out our books and notebooks and pens. Grace tried to do a passage of English comprehension. I tried to read a chapter of a French children’s book.

We sighed and stared into space a lot, unable to concentrate. I made myself a cup of black coffee to see if that would jerk me into attentiveness. Grace got the cereal packet and the sugar bowl and dipped and nibbled between sentences.

I threw my French book across the room after an hour and got out my paints and my Tobias and the Angel picture, deciding to finish it. I tried talking to Tobias in my head but Grace kept interrupting.

‘Can I use your paints too?’ she begged. ‘I want to make Dad a Get Well Soon card.’

I was scared it was a bit late in the day for a Get Well Soon card but I didn’t dare say it. I hated Grace using my paints because she always put too much water on her brush and turned the neat little palettes into muddy pools, but I decided I’d better be kind to her.

She laboured long and hard over her card. She used the back of the cornflake packet so that it would stand up stiffly. She drew our bookshop, dutifully painting each individual book red or green or brown or blue, although they merged into each other as one long book blob. Then she drew Dad, a little skinny man with a frowny face. She drew Mum, a big blobby woman with black dots for eyes and similar dots all over her dress. All the dots ran so that it looked as if Mum and her dress were weeping copiously. She drew me in a corner, reading a book, my hair very thick and bushy so my face seemed hidden by a black cloud. She drew herself wearing her favourite pink panda dress, like a big raspberry meringue.

‘Have you finished? That’s so good,’ I said.

‘It’s not. I’m rubbish at painting. I could see the way I wanted it to be in my head but it won’t come out right on the paper,’ Grace sighed. She looked at it worriedly. ‘I’ve made Dad too small.’

‘He is small. Smaller than Mum.’

‘He looks like a stick, like he’ll snap any minute,’ Grace wailed. ‘Help me make him look bigger, Prue.’

‘He’s fine,’ I said, but I stopped applying delicate touches of gold ink to the Angel’s halo and helped her lengthen Dad’s arms and legs.

‘He still doesn’t look right. He’s like one of those insect thingies with long legs,’ said Grace.

‘Daddy-longlegs,’ I said.

We laughed though it wasn’t a bit funny. Grace looked as if she might cry again any minute.

‘I wish Mum would come back,’ she said. ‘Is it lunch time yet?’

It was only just gone eleven but I made her French toast to cheer her up. We had another round each at half past twelve, and finished all the flapjacks in the tin, and ate an overripe banana mid-afternoon.

Mum didn’t get back till five. Her eyes were red, and she was clutching a sodden handkerchief.

‘He’s dead!’ I whispered.

I started sobbing. So did Grace.

‘No, no, he’s not dead. There, girls. I’m so sorry – you must have been very worried. I was in such a state I forgot to check I had any change for the phone call. I had no idea they would take so long. It’s a nightmare, a total nightmare. Your dad’s going to be so angry with me when he realizes he’s in hospital. Well, maybe he does know. It’s hard to tell.’ Mum started crying too.

‘Is he still unconscious then, Mum?’

‘Well, his eyes are open and maybe he understands. But he can’t speak, you see.’

‘What do you mean? Has he done something to his throat?’

‘No, no. Your father’s suffered a stroke, girls. It’s affected his speech and he can’t use his arm and his leg.’

‘But he’ll get better, won’t he, Mum?’ said Grace.

‘They don’t know, darling. It’s too early to tell at this stage.’

I went running out of the room. I threw myself on my bed. I couldn’t bear it. I knew it was all my fault.