The Other Family Part 25

Chrissie said nothing. She heard Sue's booted feet going rapidly and resolutely down the stairs, and then the sound of the flat's front door opening and shutting decisively. She went slowly over to the window and looked once more at the view. Their house had no view, only the prospect into the street one way and the garden not of great interest to either her or Richie, ever the other. She wasn't used to views. She gazed out at the improbable distances. She wasn't, she told herself, used to any of this. And that was the problem.

Amy had put flowers on the kitchen table. They weren't much, just the ones the guy with a stall by the tube station let her have, as the last, slightly squashed bunches in the bucket, for fifty pence. They were those Peruvian lily things, with spotted throats to their petals, which made them look slightly exotic, and they were a gloomy purplish red and the flower guy said give them some warm water and a bit of sugar, or an aspirin, and they'll perk up. Amy had dissolved a sugar cube in water in the blue jug with cream spots that she knew Chrissie liked, and stuck the lilies in there. They still looked sad, and sort of gawky, so she took them out again, and chopped off a length of stalk and picked off all the floppy leaves, and put them back again. They looked better, but still not right. Maybe flower arranging was like hair plaiting, something that some people could make look really cool without even trying, and other people just couldn't. Whatever, the table looked better for having flowers on it, and not just papers and jars of peanut b.u.t.ter and the cables for Dilly's laptop.

When Chrissie came in, she looked at the flowers, and the mugs Amy had put out, and the milk in a jug rather than in its carton and she said, 'What's all this about?'

Amy was filling the kettle. She said, without turning, 'Just felt like it.'

Chrissie put her bag on the kitchen worktop.

'How was today?'

'OK.'

'How was the exam?'

'Didn't have one today,' Amy said. She plugged in the kettle and switched it on. 'Music theory tomorrow. Revision today. Revision, revision, revision.'

Chrissie was looking through her post. She said absently, 'But worth it.'

Amy let a pause fall, and then she said, 'You?'

Chrissie glanced up.

'Me?'

'Your day OK?'

'I don't know. I really don't know-'

Amy took the Earl Grey tea caddy out of the cupboard.

'Another interview?'

'No,' Chrissie said. She put her letters down. 'No. A flat.'

'Oh,' Amy said.

Chrissie came to stand close to her. She watched her detach a couple of tea bags from the clump in the box and drop them into the teapot.

'I'm afraid,' Chrissie said, 'we can't stay here.'

'I know.'

'And I don't want to buy anything just now.'

'I know,' Amy said, 'I know all this. You've said so. We all know we can't stay here, we've known for ages.'

'I'm finding it hard, deciding-'

The kettle gave a small scream as it came to the boil, and switched itself off.

'Where's the flat?'

'Almost in the Village. Up by the school.'

'Cool-'

'It's a flat, Amy. A rented flat. The rooms are small and everything feels very thin and fragile. It's the top two floors of a house. You can see practically to the sea.'

Amy poured water on top of the tea bags.

'Did you take it?'

'Course not,' Chrissie said. She sounded faintly shocked. 'I wouldn't take it without you seeing it. You and Dilly.'

Amy opened her mouth to say, 'We'll be fine, we won't be there much anyway,' and thought better of it. Instead, she said, 'Did you like it?'

'Darling, at the moment, I don't know what I like.'

Amy carried the teapot across to the table. Maybe the flowers were beginning to look a shade more energized by their sugar. She said, 'Sit down.'

'Thank you, darling.'

'Is it cheap?'

'Is what cheap?'

'The flat.'

'Not particularly,' Chrissie said, 'but if we sell this even halfway reasonably, that'll help.'

'Good, then.'

Chrissie looked at her. She was pouring tea. She had left her hair loose, and it had swung round her face, obscuring it.

'Aren't you interested?' Chrissie said.

Amy hooked one side of her hair behind an ear.

'Kind of.'

'Don't you care where we live? Doesn't your home matter to you?'

'Course-'

'It doesn't,' Chrissie said, 'sound much like it.'

'If you're OK with where we live,' Amy said, 'I'll be OK. So will Dill.'

'I'm not sure I can choose alone-'

'Why not?' Amy said. 'You always have.'

'Ouch-'

'Well, you have. You said, and then Dad and us did it.'

Chrissie picked up the milk jug.

'Maybe,' she said carefully, 'I'm trying not to be so bossy.'

Amy pushed a mug towards her.

'Does that mean we all get a bit of say-so?'

'Well, I'd like you to have an opinion about this flat-'

'I mean, about more than the flat. About what we want ourselves and stuff-'

'I well, I suppose so.'

'Good,' Amy said with emphasis.

Chrissie looked sharply at her.

'What is all this about? What are you asking?'

Amy bent over her tea mug, cradling it between her palms.

'Well, I'm not exactly asking-' She stopped. Chrissie waited. Then Amy said, 'I've been asked to go up to Newcastle when the exams are over. I've been invited. To see where Dad grew up. And things.'

There was a silence. Chrissie picked up her mug, drank, and put it down again. She looked at the flowers. Then she looked at Amy.

'Who invited you?'

'Scott,' Amy said. She was sitting up very straight now, her hair tucked behind her ears.

'When did you speak to him?'

'He left a message,' Amy said, 'to wish me luck in the exams, and so I rang him back, and he was playing the piano and he said he'd send me the train ticket to come up to see the places Dad knew. And see the piano. Where it is now. And I said yes.'

'You said you would go-'

'Yes,' Amy said, 'I said yes, I'll come.'

Chrissie took another swallow of tea.

'This is very hard.'

'I'm not going for ever. I'm going for a few days.'

'Where will you stay?'

Amy said, 'In his flat, I should think.'

'I don't think you can stay in his flat-'

'Where I stay,' Amy said, 'is a detail. The point is, I'm going. I'm going to Newcastle.'

'You realize-'

'Yes,' Amy said. She sounded as if she was reining in considerable impatience. 'Yes, I realize this is awful for you, but this has nothing to do with my loyalty to you, that's a given, that's there whatever happens, but I really, really want to see where Dad came from, where half of me comes from. Can't you just try and understand that?'

Chrissie closed her eyes.

'I am trying-'

'OK.'

'Those people-'

'Don't call them that,' Amy said sharply.

'You might like it up there-'

Amy sighed. She put a hand out and squeezed Chrissie's arm.

'Yes, I might. But I'm your daughter and I grew up here.'

Chrissie gave herself a shake.

'I know.' She glanced at Amy. 'I never thought you'd want to.'

'That's unfair-'

'Is it?'

'Yes,' Amy said, 'you know it is.'

'Darling, it's just that I-'

Amy put her hands over her ears.

'Sorry, Mum, but don't say it. Don't say it again. We know how it is for you. It isn't much of a picnic for us either.'

'No.'