Twenty-five years earlier
My socks slide down inside my shoes. Bag bounces painfully against my hip. I’m running full-pelt up the hill that separates school from home, and I’m not even trying to avoid the splats of gray chewing gum on the pavement. If I can just get back, I might be able to snatch ten minutes with Mum before he arrives. Ten minutes is better than nothing.
After the mammoth hill, the stairs in our tower block almost kill me—the lift’s clapped out again. I duck under the line of washing that Joan from 310 always strings across the corridor, damp sleeves flapping in my face, and vault over a skateboard left at the bottom of the last flight of stairs. Then I burst into our flat, hoping he’s not early.
“Mum?” I dump my bag, throw my coat in the direction of the pegs, rush through to the kitchen. She’s standing at the window, staring out at our grotty view, the mottled window giving an impression of permanent drizzle. Or maybe she’s not really looking at anything. She seems to do a lot of gazing into space lately. My cousin Becca reckons it’s because she’s in love, all moony and dreamy, but to me she looks lost in worries. Becca says I just don’t want to admit she’s been swept off her feet by a toyboy from the floor below.
Mum turns and I’m so relieved by the way she smiles at me, pleased to see me, that I run to her and hug her hard. She feels thin beneath her post office uniform. Is she losing weight to impress her boyfriend? The word lovesick snakes into my mind. It’s so weird to think of her like that.
I go to fill the kettle. I always make the tea when I get home from school, and we have one chocolate biscuit each, sitting in the same places at the kitchen table—Mum at the end nearest the door and me to her right, where the storage heater chugs out its hint of warmth. That’s the ritual. I hope we’ve got time to do it before Toyboy arrives. The kettle’s so slow. I press my fingers against the sharp chips in the rim of the sugar bowl and feel steam kissing my nose.
At last we’re sitting at the table, biscuit tin between us, Mum with her slim fingers wrapped around her mug and her dark hair tumbling over one shoulder. And I can’t think of a thing to say. In the past this wouldn’t have bothered me: I’d slurp my tea and drift into a daydream. But now I’ve got to make this daily ten minutes count for more than the whole evenings she spends with him.
“How was school, love?” she asks, seeming to break out of a trance.
I spray Hobnob crumbs down my front in my hurry to answer. “Got a B in geography.” Suddenly it doesn’t seem good enough, though I was happy with it earlier, especially as maps make me feel dizzy and dwarfed. The world’s so huge and I’ve never been outside the Midlands. When the weather forecast does its sweep of the country I feel embarrassingly breathless, unnerved but mesmerized by the scattering of cities, the peep of Europe in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
“That’s my girl,” Mum says, and I beam. She’s still distracted, though. She’s only nibbled half a biscuit, hasn’t raised an eyebrow about the two I’ve gobbled before dinner.
“Amy got detention,” I tell her. For extra drama I add: “Her third this week!”
Mum does an uh-oh face at me and I giggle.
“What did she do this time?” she asks.
“Miss Stone found cigarettes in her pocket. But they were actually her nan’s.”
“Didn’t Miss Stone believe her?”
“You know Scary Stoney.”
Mum laughs mid-bite, and I feel like I’ve won a prize. “Stern Stoney,” she says.
“Shouty Stoney.” I grin.
We’re just warming to it, thinking of more S-words, when I hear the front door and my heart dives. Even the sound of him coming in and kicking off his shoes infuriates me. He doesn’t knock anymore. Leaves his sneakers next to ours as if he’s one of the family.
“Hi, girls,” he calls in his posh voice—well, posh compared to us, anyway. He’s from down south, somewhere. I think he moved up here for work. Even though he’s been Mum’s boyfriend for seven months now, and our downstairs neighbor for a few more before that, I know almost nothing about him.
He strolls over to Mum and kisses her. I can’t help watching, can’t help feeling he’s squeezing her too tight. After they’ve pulled apart, his hand paws her hair.
“Cup of tea?” he asks, even though surely he can see we’re in the middle of one.
To my surprise, Mum says, “I’ll have another, thanks, darling.” It annoys me that she calls him “darling” when she calls most people “love.” And that she’s having another cup of tea just because he’s offered.
“Can’t tempt you?” he asks me, waggling the teapot. He always uses the pot instead of just plonking the bags into the cups like I do. Maybe Mum prefers it that way, doesn’t want to hurt my feelings by saying so. Maybe she’ll pour away the second half of the mug I’ve made.
I shake my head, mumble something about homework. Mum offers me a smile as I flee the room, but he doesn’t glance at me. He’s staring at Mum, like always.