LITMIR.BIZ

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Tamsin put out a hand for the laptop.

      Roz hesitated, momentarily defiant; but then her shoulders sagged in defeat and she relinquished the laptop meekly. She applied her index fingers to the corners of her eyes to stop two tears that were forming there. ‘I just don’t understand how he can bear to be with someone like that. Why her? Why her?’

      ‘What I don’t understand,’ said Tamsin, grimly, ‘is why you’re still asking yourself these pointless questions. No, really, I don’t get it. How can you still be giving headspace to someone who treated you so badly? Think about it, Roz’ – Tamsin reserved her mother’s name for moments like this – ‘it just doesn’t make any sense, does it? Well, does it?’

      They had arrived, with practised speed, at an old impasse in an old argument. Roz shrugged helplessly. She couldn’t explain why she still thought about Bertrand so much. Her daughter’s fierce logic left no room for the fact that he was there in her dreams every other night, being kind.

      Tamsin raked her shoulder-length hair away from her face with her fingertips and held it scrunched at the back of her head. ‘Sometimes it’s almost as if you’ve forgotten what he did,’ she said, sitting down heavily on the sofa next to Roz.

      These were the opening lines of a story they both knew very well indeed, a story that began with the basic facts of Bertrand’s betrayal and ended, by way of a list (not comprehensive) of the lies he had told, with a series of exhortations to emotional strength and independence. The trajectory of her mother’s response – from silent tears through increasingly resolute sniffs to the desired declarations of outrage and contempt – was as familiar to Tamsin as the story itself.

      ‘Shall I tell you something, Tamsin? I’m glad that what happened happened. I really am. To think that I lived with a monster like that for so many years with no idea of his capacity for cruelty—’

      When the initial fervour of her renewed indignation had subsided, Roz gripped her daughter tightly around the waist and leaned her head sideways onto Tamsin’s shoulder.

      ‘What would I do without you.’ It was a statement, not a question.

      ‘Mmmm.’ Tamsin’s features contracted briefly in a frown her mother couldn’t see. Then she stood up and smiled brightly at Roz. ‘Right. Cup of tea and a cigarette?’

      Serena was in the kitchen, eating a bowl of artisan ravioli.

      ‘That stuff’s expensive, you know,’ Tamsin told her sister as she filled the kettle. ‘You’re not meant to eat it like it’s cereal.’

      ‘So?’ said Serena through a mouthful of the pasta. ‘It’s not like you paid for it.’

      Serena was wearing nothing but a navy-blue polo shirt belonging to an old boyfriend. On her tiny frame, it functioned as a dress: the sleeves reached past her elbows, the hem skimmed her pinkish knees. Like Roz, Serena was just five foot two. She had fine silvery-blonde hair, which she wore pinned up high in a smooth, glossy twist. Her top two front teeth protruded very slightly, resting behind her lower lip and pushing it forward into a permanent pout. All of this – the hair, the teeth, the twenty-three inch waist – was Roz’s. Roz was privately ashamed of how much more strongly she felt the genetic allegiance between herself and her younger daughter. But again and again, she found herself both comforted and moved by the perpetual surprise of this everyday miracle.

      Tamsin pushed a cup of tea towards Roz, who was holding her mobile phone away from her at arm’s length like a hand mirror in order to read a text message. Her glasses were on the counter, within easy reach. Tamsin bit back her irritation at this and turned it instead on Serena.

      ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ she wanted to know. Serena, who had none of Tamsin’s scruples about accepting Bertrand’s money, shared a town house in Clapham with three girlfriends. Generally, she only came home if she wanted Roz to look after her in the run-up to a big concert.

      ‘Nice to see you too. I had my driving test yesterday, didn’t I? And before you ask’ – Serena got up and scraped the last two ravioli into the bin – ‘I didn’t pass.’

      ‘Bad luck.’ Tamsin spoke without a trace of sympathy. ‘What happened?’

      ‘I ran over a squirrel.’

      Tamsin laughed and some tea exploded out through her nose. She wiped her dripping face on her sleeve, still sniggering.

      ‘It’s not funny.’ Serena looked upset.

      ‘It is if you have a sense of humour.’

      ‘I don’t have time for this.’ Serena stalked across the reclaimed flagstones towards the door. ‘I’ve got to practise.’

      Tamsin slumped into the chair where her sister had been sitting. In a vase at the centre of the table, six dying tulips formed a histrionic tableau, their heads hanging heavily from the s-bends of their stems. A few petals, faded from red to a weak tea brown, were stuck to the tabletop. From the music room came the sound of Serena warming up her reed in fast, staccato bursts.

      Roz tucked her mobile phone into the pocket of her tight black jeans and sat down at the table next to Tamsin. ‘You could try to be a bit nicer to Beanie, Tam. She’s very disappointed. She really needed to pass that test.’

      ‘No, she didn’t. She lives in London. There are buses and tubes and pavements. She doesn’t need to drive.’

      Tamsin was aware that this was the conversational equivalent of picking a newly formed scab, but she said it anyway. She scraped at one of the decomposing tulip petals with her thumbnail as she waited for the reply she didn’t want to hear.

      ‘Bean’s got a lot of touring coming up this summer. You know that.’ Her mother’s voice was maddeningly gentle. ‘Having a car would make her life a lot easier.’

      ‘Sure. Like it’s not easy enough already,’ said Tamsin, moving her hand out of reach of a solicitous pat.

      ‘Tammy. Look at me.’ Roz pulled her chair closer to the table. She felt slightly awkward, as she often did when called on to play mother to her eldest daughter. ‘It is easier for her. You know it’s a specialism, she’s a rare commodity. You’re one of an overwhelming majority. It was always going to be harder for you.’

      This was an excuse that had long since lost its power to comfort Tamsin, even though, outwardly, it still made sense. Serena was a baroque musician; she played the recorder and the oboe d’amore. In the tiny, closed world of Early Music, she was a big talent. It was statistically much more difficult to make it as a concert pianist – as Tamsin was trying to do.

      The real reason Tamsin wasn’t making it, wasn’t ever going to make it, was that although she was very good indeed, very good indeed wasn’t quite good enough. Serena was more than good enough. She was indisputably the better musician. Roz’s attempts to prevent this unacknow-ledged fact from coming between her two daughters were proving ineffective. Tamsin’s envy, once furtive and self-censoring, no longer bothered to conceal itself. Increasingly, Serena felt the weight of this envy and resented it. It was boring for her to have to downplay her successes the whole time. She was sick of being sensitive.

      Tamsin rubbed a bit of petal between her thumb and middle finger and flicked it sulkily across the table. ‘I don’t care if she’s got a concert, she can’t have the music room all day. I do have work to do too, you know.’ She pushed her chair back from the table with some force and stood up, annoyed by her own petulance yet unable to move away from it.

      ‘Tammy—’

      But her daughter was already gone. The kitchen door swung slowly shut behind her, muting the sound of Serena’s playing.

      * * *

      Two pints of Foster’s, a gin and tonic, the best part of a bottle of wine, a bottle of Beck’s, a triple shot of tequila, some more wine, a Jägerbomb, a pint of Stella and a good deal of whisky: it is hardly surprising that the following morning,

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