LITMIR.BIZ

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to pick it up.

      ‘Hi,’ said Maggie. ‘I rang to see if you’d got back okay. It was lovely to see you. It was such a shame you couldn’t have stayed longer.’

      If only Maggie knew how big a shame.

      ‘It would be great if you could come down next week, if you can spare the time obviously. You don’t have to stay all week –’

      It was the first time she remembered Maggie asking her for anything. Kate paused for a moment; on the drive home she had come up with all kinds of valid excuses for not going back, although that seemed like a long time ago now. On the edge of her hearing she heard the back door close. It had to be Joe going out. Kate swallowed hard. She longed to be away from this mess more than almost anything else, and so Kate said, as brightly as she could manage, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be down first thing Monday morning if that’s okay. It’ll give me chance to sort some work out –’

      ‘Oh, that’s wonderful,’ Maggie sounded surprised and relieved.

      ‘I’ve got to go now though, Mum, I’ve – I’ve –’ Kate paused again, unable to think of any plausible reason to hang up. The possibilities were too painful to contemplate. ‘I’ll ring you later.’

      Kate was barely half way up the stairs before the phone rang again.

      ‘I’m pleased that you’ve been to see Mum,’ said Liz, before Kate could get more than a few words of greeting in.

      ‘Obviously she’s got my mobile number if she needs me,’ Liz continued. Her tone was emphatic, dry, businesslike and above all, defensive. ‘She’s never appreciated a lot of fuss.’ The inference was of course that haring up to Norfolk in the middle of the night most definitely constituted fuss.

      ‘I’ve told her that we’ll pop down next weekend. Toby and Gillian are having a barbecue this weekend. It’s a fundraiser for some orphanage in Rumania. We’d already RSVP’d and I don’t like to let people down.’

      ‘Obviously,’ Kate said, in a voice so heavy with sarcasm that she assumed even Liz wouldn’t be able to overlook it. ‘I’m going to stay with Mum next week,’ Kate continued, not adding that she was also running away from the discovery that the man Liz had always thought was an arrogant, smug, second-rate musician, was also a lying, adulterous bastard.

      ‘Oh right,’ Liz couldn’t quite keep the surprise out of her voice. ‘Mum said that Guy will be there over the weekend, so we needn’t worry too much I suppose, although it’s not like family.’

      We; we: Liz and Mr Peter Patently-Successful. Fleetingly Kate wondered if she had always been this cynical and nasty or whether she had turned that way and not noticed. Maybe that’s why Joe had gone off with Chrissie. The words stung. Had he gone off with Chrissie? Is that where he was now? She started to tremble.

      Odd how it was possible to behave and talk normally while all around you Rome burns. What had they been talking about? Guy. Oh yes. ‘What do you think of Guy?’

      Liz had to have an opinion on the whole Guy-mother thing. But instead of saying anything Liz made a noncommittal noise, so Kate pressed, ‘Have you met him?’

      ‘Well yes, very briefly, at Christmas,’ said Liz vaguely. ‘He seemed very pleasant.’

      ‘Pleasant?’

      ‘Well, you know, he’s fine as lodgers go; we didn’t have much chance to talk. He was off to see his ex-wife I think it was, or maybe it was his mother. I can’t really remember now.’

      So Liz didn’t know about Guy and Maggie.

      ‘You sound very tense. Are you all right? How’s Joe?’ asked Liz.

      ‘What do you mean?’ Kate snapped, aware of an excess of emotion in her voice.

      ‘Nothing. I just wondered how things were. Not that I’m prying or anything but it must be a strain being freelance, never knowing how much you’re going to earn each month or whether you’ll have any work at all.’ She made a noise that under other circumstances might have passed for a laugh. ‘I’ve always said to Peter that you’re both very brave, I don’t know how you manage.’

      For brave substitute stupid, thought Kate. This conversation was never far from Liz’s lips as if Joe’s and Kate’s continued survival was an affront to Liz’s neatly structured life. Sometimes she could head Liz off before it was too late but today she hadn’t the energy or the inclination.

      ‘We do worry about you, and I know Mum does too, you looked so tired last time we came up to see you, and Peter thought Joe was very off with everybody.’

      Kate kept schtum, not wanting to point out that Liz and Peter’s visit was the reason for everyone being so tense and grumpy. There was a silence as deep as the ocean.

      Kate knew that anything she said would be taken down and used in evidence against her later. A previous conversation about Kate’s marriage had hinged on the premise that most of the family thought Joe was an arrogant, overbearing waster who should grow up and get a proper job; although when pressed, Liz had been reluctant to name names.

      ‘There’s no need to get upset,’ said Liz.

      ‘Upset, what do you mean, upset? I’m not at all upset,’ Kate growled. Damn, damn, damn, now Liz would think she really was upset.

      ‘You know, if there’s any way that Peter and I can ever help,’ she said, in a viperous undertone, ‘you know you only have to ask.’

      Kate took a deep breath to let Liz have a piece of her mind, although which piece she wasn’t altogether certain.

      ‘Mum, can I have a fiver?’

      That wasn’t what Kate planned to say at all, with a mouth full of unspoken words as sharp as broken glass, she swung round. Danny was standing on the bottom of the stairs, grinning. By some terrible trick of genetics, time and protein, he stood more than head and shoulders above her and looked just like a younger version of Joe.

      He shifted from foot to foot, moving in a way that implied he was extremely busy, and had very little time to wait for Kate to give him the money. Good God, he’d got all kinds of things to do. Important things. He was nearly fifteen, didn’t she realise? Over the last few months it increasingly seemed as if Danny only spoke to Kate when she was on the phone or quite obviously busy doing something else. It was a tactic. He was hoping Kate would be so absorbed in whatever she was doing that she won’t notice what he was asking for.

      ‘No chance,’ she snapped in a tone that let Danny know that the situation was not up for discussion. Unfortunately, she didn’t cover the receiver.

      ‘Well pardon me for asking,’ said Liz, slightly cowed. ‘I was only trying to help.’

      ‘I’m not talking to you,’ Kate replied almost as sharply. Which didn’t help at all.

      ‘Why?’ Now Liz sounded upset. ‘What on earth have I done?’

      Kate slumped forward against the hallstand. ‘Nothing, nothing at all, Liz. I was talking to Danny. He was asking me for money.’ Which didn’t sound good either.

      Jake, who was almost eleven, squeezed past Kate on his way to the kitchen. He’d left his bedroom door open so the hall filled up with the sounds of laser blasts and engine roar from his TV.

      ‘I’m really worried about you, Kate,’ Liz said, and then as if sensing that it was perhaps not a good place to go, said, ‘Why did you want to know about Guy?’

      ‘Curiosity,’ Kate growled.

      ‘He’s been giving Mum a hand with the garden at weekends apparently. Which is nice –’

      That isn’t the only thing he’s been giving her a hand with, Kate thought.

      ‘And he’s given the conservatory a lick of paint,’ Liz continued oblivious. While Kate’s little sister might be as

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