‘She seems like a lovely girl, very polite! Good job I didn’t make pizza then!’ Mum says, lifting the lid of the cooking pan. ‘You two made a good dent in this!’ She takes a spoonful. ‘Not bad, is it?’

I know Mum’s only fishing for a conversation. I don’t reply, so she casts again.

‘What did she think of your room?’

‘How would I know?’ I can hardly speak with embarrassment as I replay Pari’s visit over and over. I’ve got this pain behind my eyes. I wish I’d never invited her. From the minute Pari walked in the door when her stomach started rumbling, it was like I got this hollow feeling in my stomach that I don’t even know what to do with.

‘I just thought . . . she’s the first friend you’ve shown it to . . .’

‘We didn’t hang out in there! We sat here mostly and on my perch. I’m going up now!’ I say, and start to climb the stairs.

‘Hang on a minute, Laila, we’re talking!’ Mum follows after me. ‘So what did you do together then?’

‘Nothing much! Ate, talked a bit, did some homework.’

‘On a Friday night? She can come again!’ Mum jokes.

‘She hasn’t got a computer at home. Not everyone has all this!’ I snap, pointing at the landing bookshelves.

Mum massages her forehead and sits down next to me. I think she must have a headache too.

‘Laila, we had a call from your tutor at school. She was talking about you looking tired and she’d noticed you scratching at your eczema. She also told me you were late one morning. You didn’t say. What was that about?’

I shrug like I can’t even remember being late. ‘Oh yeah! Forgot my keys.’

‘You’d feel a lot better, more on top of things, if you could just sleep properly.’

‘Probably.’

Mum sighs and gets up. As soon as she’s gone downstairs I feel bad. It’s not her fault it went badly with Pari. I feel so on my own sitting here. No Mira or Krish arguing, no one blasting the house with music, no one trying to pick me up . . . I want to call out to Mum and ask her if she’ll lie next to me till I go to sleep, like she used to when I was little.

My phone pings.

Thanks for tonight. Sorry I ran out on you. Will you keep the books for me, please? I really want them. Left my homework on your table. Can you bring it in on Monday? PX

I feel this glow of relief spread through me.

I text Pari back.

Glad you’re OK. Will keep books for
you and bring homework in. Laila X

Mum comes up to bed. I don’t even bother to hide that I’m sleeping on the landing. She bends down and kisses me on the forehead.

‘When’s Dad back?’ I ask.

‘Late, I think. He’s at a work-do. He’ll try not to disturb you.’ Mum looks towards Mira’s room but doesn’t start on me about sleeping in there tonight.

‘Love you, Laila.’

‘Love you, Mum,’ I whisper.

‘I’ll take those off to the book bank tomorrow,’ she says.

‘No, don’t!’

‘Don’t what?’ Mum asks.

‘Take them. I’ve changed my mind. I’m keeping them!’

‘Oh, Laila!’ Mum lets one of the paperbacks drop on to the pile, making it topple. ‘If you’re keeping them, can you at least get them back on the shelves in your room, please?’ She bends down and picks up the books she’s knocked off the stack. ‘I thought we could go tomorrow and get that new uniform for you at last.’

‘Changed my mind about that too. I don’t want one any more. There’s no point.’

Mum wrinkles her forehead into three deep furrow lines and carries on up to her room. I wish I could explain it all to her so she doesn’t think I’m trying to be difficult. It’s just that things keep changing. If I had a brand-new uniform now it would feel so wrong.

Dad isn’t that quiet when he comes in. I’ve still got the light on and he sees that I’m awake.

‘I am definitely not going to ask you how it went with your friend!’

‘Good! Because I’m definitely not going to tell you!’

Dad kisses me on the forehead. ‘We won’t talk tomorrow, OK?’

‘I look forward to that!’

I don’t sleep for one single moment, as I pick over every minute of Pari’s visit, wishing I could put the whole thing on rewind. I should never have invited her in the first place. I scratch and scratch at the crook of my elbow. I don’t care if I make it bleed.

Dad’s making eggy-bread in the kitchen while Mum casts her line again.

‘I was just thinking how independent Pari is, travelling on the tube like that!’

‘Not everyone mollycoddles their children like you do,’ I say.

‘Mollycoddles?’ Mum laughs. ‘I haven’t heard that phrase in years . . . where did you hear it from?’

‘Don’t know – think I read it somewhere.’

‘Well, I know I wouldn’t be happy with you taking the bus and the tube on your own, especially with the nights drawing in.’

‘Well, Pari still has to go to school in winter!’

‘I wouldn’t like it either,’ Dad chips in, bringing me through my eggy-bread. ‘Here you go – not quite like the old fry-up days, but not bad.’ He smiles and places his own plate on the table.

‘And how’s Pari supposed to get to and from school? Are you going to give her a lift every day and night?’

Mum ignores me. ‘It’s just a shame I didn’t get to talk to her.’ She tuts at the mess of paper and pens strewn over the table.

‘I couldn’t face this lot last night. I don’t mind you having friends over as long as you clear up afterwards!’

I jump up but it’s too late – Mum’s already got hold of Pari’s charcoal drawing.

‘Did your friend do this?’ she asks. She’s frowning at Pari’s drawing like she’s committed a crime or something.

‘Yeah, she forgot it.’ I take the page from Mum. ‘It’s for History. I’m taking it in for her on Monday.’

Mum switches the radio on and there’s something on the news about a bomb going off in a city somewhere. She switches it off again fast, like she used to switch TV channels when ‘inappropriate’ programmes came on when I was little.

‘Why did you do that? Don’t you want me to know about what’s actually going on in the world?’

‘Oh, Laila, I’m shattered. I couldn’t sleep at all last night. You must be exhausted too. It’s a big day tomorrow with Janu arriving. Let’s hunker down and have a cosy day.’

‘I don’t have much choice if I’m grounded,’ I mumble.

‘Maybe we’ll see if we can get hold of Mira and Krish on the phone later.’

‘That sounds good,’ Dad says through a yawn. ‘It was a bit of a late one for me too! Let’s have a look at your homework then.’

‘Can I have Pari’s homework, please, Mum?’ I hold my hand out and she passes it back to me.

‘It would be good to talk about this,’ she says.

‘I wish everyone would stop talking about Pari. She’s in my tutor group and she’s my friend, that’s all. Here! Have a good read through this too if you want to know everything!’ I slam all our homework down on the table and run into the hallway.

‘Come on, Laila, stay down here for a bit!’ Dad reaches through the banisters for my hand. ‘We only want to chat.’ He lifts up my homework. ‘This is interesting – family connections to history. I don’t remember Krish and Mira doing this. I could tell you a few stories . . .’

I pull my hand away, walk up the stairs and close Mira’s door. I lie on her bed playing my sad empty picture-frames game, except this time instead of trying to remember what pictures Mira used to have on the wall, I start to fill up the blanks with my own . . . of Kez, Pari, Bubbe, Simon, Hope and Nana Josie.

About half an hour later there’s a knock. Dad pushes open the door and peers around.

‘Can I come in?’ He does his funny hunched-shouldered, head-bowed walk, the one he always does when he wants to make up. He’s carrying the CD player.

I half smile at him and he straightens up as if me not being angry with him any more has made everything in the world right again. He hands me back my homework.

‘I thought you might like to hear something. Glad I didn’t throw this old player out now!’

I shift over on the bed.

‘I’ve dug around and found a few vintage items,’ he says, plugging it in. ‘I had your grandad’s recording transferred to a CD after your Nana Josie’s funeral. Felt right to put them together . . . but I’ve never played them since.’

Dad presses PLAY and comes to sit next to me on Mira’s bed.

‘When I was about your age I had this microphone recorder kit for my birthday. I got it into my head I was going to be a reporter or something. The recording’s a bit crackly, but—’

A boy’s bright little voice cuts through the interference.

‘Dad, can you tell me two things you’ve done that you think are important?’

‘Is that you?’ I mouth at Dad as if Grandad Kit is in the room and I’m interrupting them.

Dad nods.

‘Mmm, good question!’

That’s Grandad Kit’s voice. He sounds a bit like Dad now.

Grandad’s talking about something called ‘The Battle of Cable Street’ in the East End of London, when people stood up against someone called ‘Mosley’. He’s talking about how he and his friends could see the evil that Hitler was doing and how they had felt that they needed to do something to fight the rise of fascism here too. He talks about putting on anti-fascist concerts and plays, and about his political cartoons.

Now Grandad Kit is talking about how he gave up smoking and used the money to start his book business. He sounds like he’s really enjoying telling this story. It’s just getting going when the tape cuts out.

‘That’s all there is of Grandad’s voice. I know – it’s a shame. I think my batteries must have run out!’ Dad sighs.

‘You sound so sweet and Grandad sounds funny!’

‘He was a one-off. Laila, I know you find it hard to believe, but Mum and I were once your age, asking some of the same questions you’re asking . . .’

I rest my head on Dad’s shoulder. The voice has changed on the tape now, and the recording is clear. Nana Josie’s voice sounds all smooth, almost like a professional reporter.

‘Your Nana Josie . . . Mum,’ Dad whispers.

It seems like she’s being interviewed for radio about being in the hospice. I feel Dad’s chest heave up and down and he reaches out for my hand as he listens to her talking about her life. The strangest thing is I feel like I already know what her voice sounds like, even though I’ve never actually heard her speak.

‘She sounds really happy, even though she was ill . . . like she’d had a good life,’ I say.

‘She was, Laila – and seeing you born was one of the reasons she was so happy.’

‘Have Mira and Krish heard this?’ I ask.

‘The interview with Nana? Yes, at her funeral. I haven’t played anyone the one with me interviewing Dad. I should though. Krish never met Dad either.’

I never thought of that. I suppose I think of Mira and Krish both knowing the same things. But even when you’re in the same family, each person knows different stories – and even when they are part of the same story, they probably wouldn’t tell it in the same way.

I am just about to take the Protest Book out from under Mira’s bed and come clean about going to pick it up from Simon when Dad says something that stops me.

‘Thinking about it, I’m not sure I’ve ever played that to anyone since I recorded it. I think I wanted to keep it for myself. It was just a father-and-son chat . . . until now.’ Dad squeezes my shoulder. ‘When I was your age I was looking for something too, and that interview with my dad – well, it was just what I needed at the time. I suppose it was me saying, I want to understand what’s going on in the world, I’m not a kid any more.’

So he did hear what I was saying about Kez’s bat mitzvah.

Dad unplugs the CD player and heads for the door. I don’t even know why I do it, but I run at him and nearly knock him over I hug him so tight.

‘Steady!’ He laughs. ‘Don’t knock the old boy off his feet!’

‘You sounded just like Grandad Kit then.’

In the morning, on our doorstep, I find a hand-delivered card addressed to me. It’s an invitation to Kez’s bat mitzvah. There’s a little note with it too, asking us all over for ‘Sunday supper’ at the end of half-term ‘to round off Janu’s stay’. He isn’t even here yet! If this had arrived yesterday it would have annoyed me, but something about listening to those tapes with Dad feels like it’s changed something.