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we take the wall,’ Freddie asks hopefully, ‘and finish it at Nanny and Nonno’s?’

      ‘Of course not, stupid,’ Mia crows. ‘It’ll break.’

      ‘No it won’t.’ He blows a farty noise in her face.

      ‘I’ll keep it safe for you,’ Kerry says quickly, ‘and you can finish it when you get back, okay?’

      ‘Don’t smash it up.’ He fixes her with a fierce stare.

      ‘Of course I won’t, darling.’ Although, if you were to construct a Lego model of your father’s face …

      They’re leaving now, and at the sight of Kerry hugging the children, Buddy leaps for the door as if trying to block their exit.

      ‘He gets a bit stressed when people leave,’ Kerry says over his fretful barks.

      ‘A dog with a separation anxiety?’ Rob pulls a wry smile.

      ‘Yes, well, he has abandonment issues.’ Restraining Buddy by his collar, she steps outside with Rob and the children, shutting the door firmly behind her.

      A car has pulled up, and Harvey climbs out, looking mildly taken aback by the small group who are clambering into Rob’s car, and the urgent barking from inside the house.

      ‘Hi, Harvey,’ Kerry says with a smile, glancing back to see Buddy who’s on the back of the sofa now, steaming the glass with his breath. ‘Just saying goodbye,’ she adds. ‘Won’t be a minute.’

      ‘Yeah, sure.’ No need to introduce him to Rob, she decides as he buckles the children’s seatbelts and climbs into the front. For all he knows, this handsome young man has come round to whisk her off to that glass cube seafood restaurant, followed by an afternoon in bed. She tries to transmit the message: I am fully intending to have hot sex with this man. But she can’t even do that. With all the barking going on, Kerry is incapable of dredging up a lewd thought. Anyway, Mia has lowered the rear window and is shouting, ‘It’s that clown man again! It’s Harvey Chuckles!’ Which causes Harvey to blush and Rob to smirk, infuriatingly, before driving away.

      *

      Harvey, it turns out, is a joy to teach. Keen and attentive, he picks up simple chords and melodies with ease, and soon Kerry starts to feel halfway human again.

      ‘So you do children’s parties,’ Kerry says after his lesson.

      ‘Yep, for my sins.’ He steps gingerly over the Great Wall of China in the kitchen and ruffles Buddy behind the ears.

      ‘Well, I admire you. Two birthday parties a year are enough for me. I can knock together a cake and organise a few games, but there’s always that sense that everything could spiral out of control at any minute …’

      ‘I know that feeling. Last one I did, some kid pelted me with barley sugars.’

      ‘Who gives out barley sugars at a children’s party?’

      ‘God knows,’ he laughs. ‘I suspect they were handed out as ammunition – you know, make me work for my fee.’

      ‘I don’t suppose …’ She pauses. ‘No, I’m sure you’ll be busy – it’s the Saturday between Christmas and New Year …’

      ‘What is?’

      ‘Mia’s birthday party. We’re having it here, planning to invite a few of her class …’ She breaks off again, wondering how much to tell him. ‘It’ll be her first birthday since we moved here, and since her dad and I split up,’ she explains, ‘so I really want it to go well for her. I don’t suppose you’d be free that day, the twenty-ninth?’ She sees him hesitate and regrets putting him on the spot.

      ‘Fine, I’m sure I could do that.’

      ‘Well, if something else comes up …’

      ‘No, I’d like to do it,’ he adds firmly.

      She smiles, relieved. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of booking someone before. It’s probably because Rob wouldn’t have considered it. How feeble does that sound?’ She laughs. ‘Sometimes it feels as if I’m still getting used to being on my own, you know? And when things need seeing to – like horrible stuff bubbling up in the shower – I need to think, okay, don’t panic, just call someone who knows what they’re doing …’ She stops abruptly, conscious of babbling on. Since when did she become incapable of conducting herself like a normal person?

      ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I’ll do my best. Maybe, um …’ He glances down at the garish orange floor. ‘Would it be awful of me to suggest doing it in exchange for a couple of piano lessons?’

      ‘Sure, but more than a couple. Say … five, does that sound okay? Would that cover your normal fee?’

      ‘Oh, more than. That’s very generous of you.’

      ‘That’s a deal then.’ She grins, feeling her spirits rise as she sees Harvey out. And, although it’s immensely tempting to text Rob to tell him she’s just booked a children’s entertainer, with steely willpower she manages to resist.

      Chapter Thirty-Two

      ‘I can’t believe you still buy him an advent calendar,’ Nadine tells Mary, Rob’s mother. ‘That’s the cutest thing I ever heard.’

      Rob watches in tight-jawed silence as his girlfriend fixes his mum with a beaming, red-lipped smile which has yet to be returned.

      ‘He’s always had one, hasn’t he, Eugene?’ Mary flicks her gaze towards Rob’s father, who merely nods and looks down at his plate. ‘I gave it to him last weekend,’ she adds, ‘in time for the first of December. But he left it here.’

      ‘That’s even better,’ Nadine goes on, ‘because today’s, what – the eighth? So you’ve got eight chocolates to eat, Rob, you lucky man!’

      Rob darts a look at Nadine, trying to transmit the message that she must stop this immediately, that his parents’ rather stiff and formal dining room is no place to start wittering on about advent calendars and taking the piss out of him. Conversations here tend to orbit the same safe territories: the children, his job, his father’s pickle business and his mother’s latest triumphs at the WI.

      ‘Oh, I love advent calendars, don’t you?’ Nadine is addressing Mia and Freddie now, who are regarding her with astonishment, as if she’s just burst out of a cake. She picks up her glass of sparkling water and beams around the table. ‘They’re one of the best things about Christmas, aren’t they? Do you two get them?’

      Mia nods wordlessly, and Freddie picks at a nostril. Rob glimpses his mother’s terse face and calculates how much he might possibly get away with drinking without making a complete arse of himself. Clearly, Nadine feels out of her depth here. Mia and Freddie are still gawping at her, now pushing green beans and sweetcorn around their plates. Rob knows he should try to take charge of the situation, but doesn’t want to make the atmosphere worse by telling them not to stare or demanding that they eat their vegetables.

      Eugene is slicing his pork chop with such delicacy that he could be performing a delicate operation on a human kidney. Mary’s entire face looks as if it might crack, even though it was her who’d insisted, ‘Of course we want to meet this Nadine, seeing as you’re having a child with her.’ She’d pronounced it ‘Nay-deen’ in her strong Yorkshire accent, wincing slightly as if she’d meant to say, ‘tumour’. ‘We want to welcome her into our family, Roberto,’ she’d added stoically.

      ‘Oh, I’m in a pretty menial job at the moment,’ Nadine is explaining (one of his parents must have asked her a question, Rob isn’t sure which). ‘It’s not what I really want to do, though. What I’m really interested in is interior design, making spaces fun and inspiring, and after the baby’s born I hope

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