LAVINIA BRINGS IN a pair of pigeons she’s picked up in a salvage yard. They’re cast in iron, battered but pretty, painted in cream with a speckling of rust showing through. The woman in the travel agent’s certainly wouldn’t like them. We put them out on the pavement, next to a statue of Ganesh that Lavinia found in Rajasthan and our rickety wrought-iron table that today holds just white flowers—orchids and snowdrops and crocuses. The orchids look like open mouths.
“So, Grace—how’s it going with Sylvie?”
I still haven’t managed to say that we have lost the nursery place. I decide I will wait until after our session with Adam Winters next Saturday. Then maybe it will all be different.
I tell her about him. She listens intently, bright-eyed.
“Wow, Gracie,” she says when I’ve finished. “How utterly intriguing. Did he tell you how he’d approach her?”
“He said he’d talk to her about it, perhaps get her to do a drawing . . .”
She nods. She picks a dead leaf from a plant. You can see the cinnamon staining on the insides of her fingers.
“I’d been wondering, Grace,” she says then. “Have you ever done that yourself—you know, asked her directly about all this?”
“Well, sometimes. Kind of.”
“Like—have you ever asked her why she never calls you Mum?”
I feel how damp my gloves are. I peel them off. I shall put them to dry on the hot pipes. The chill from my hands spreads through my body.
“If you ask her why she does things, she can’t really tell you,” I say.
“I just thought it might be interesting—to see what she would say to that. To hear it from her point of view.”
“Yes. Maybe I should try it.”
I don’t tell her the real reason. That I’m scared of what might happen. Afraid that Sylvie would fix me with her cool blue gaze, a little frown marked on her forehead, and say, But you aren’t Mum. Not really. Very calm and matter-of-fact. You aren’t my mum, Grace. I know I couldn’t bear it if she did that.