SUNDAY, 23 APRIL, AFTERNOON

The phone is ringing while I’m fumbling with the key. I think it must be Rod so I fumble harder. The phone keeps pulsing away behind the front door. I get it open and pounce on the phone.

“Rod?” I say, “Is that you?”

“Um, no,” says a different voice, “I am afraid it’s only me.”

For a moment I’m completely confused. I know the voice but I can’t picture its owner. Then I suddenly know only too well. “Oh, it’s you, is it?” I say, quite coldly.

“Well, I’m sorry I’m not Rod,” Tristan says. “Rod must be some hunk.”

“Drop dead.”

“Charming,” Tristan says.

“Look, what is this? Have you just rung me up to tell me I’m charming? Because if you have—”

“Don’t be like that, Jenny. We are going to be brother and sister, so we might as well learn to get along together.”

“I don’t see why. And as for this brother-sister thing, I believe it’s got something to do with having the same parents, not just having a mother who’s run away from home and shacked up with some no-hoper. Even if they do get engaged in some stupid ceremony with a lot of dead rose petals and people getting drunk all over the garden....” And then I’m crying. I simply can’t believe it, but it’s happening. I’m on the phone crying to Tristan.

“I know it hurts, Jenny,” Tristan says. “It hurts me too. There’s no point in fighting.”

He’s right, actually, but I still feel angry and upset. I stop crying and say, “Yeah, well, all right. Anyway, why did you ring me up? I don’t think we’ve got anything to say to each other.”

“Well, maybe we haven’t. But we don’t know that until we’ve talked to each other.”

“We’re talking now, aren’t we?”

“I think we should meet somewhere. There are limits to what you can say on the phone.”

But in fact we talk some more on the phone and I start to feel a bit less angry and then Tristan suggests we meet at the Time Zone arcade in the city. I’ve never been there. I don’t think Poppa would consider it the sort of place I ought to go to. I’m sure he thinks it’s full of dope peddlers. Maybe it is—but I wouldn’t mind checking it out. I say, “Oh, all right, but I’m bringing a friend.”

Tristan says, “Davy? Or Rod?”

I sort of giggle. “I couldn’t bring Rod.”

“Why not? You seemed eager enough to talk to him just now.”

“Yeah,” I say, “But he lives in 1960.”

There’s a moment of baffled silence. “I don’t get you.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “I’ll meet you at the Arcade tomorrow after school. I’ll bring Davy and maybe my friend Maddy. See you.”

I go off to the kitchen to grab a bowl of corn flakes. The funny thing is: I feel quite happy. I’m quite looking forward to meeting Tristan again. After I’ve finished the corn flakes I phone Maddy. She’s really pleased at the idea of checking out Tristan, not to mention the Arcade. She’s never been there either. Then I ring Davy. He’s not so keen on meeting Tristan again, to say the least. But I tell him that Maddy and I are going anyway, so he says he’ll come too, just to add a bit of support. Big deal.