LITMIR.BIZ

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arms and cigarette holes in the cushions. She moved aside Paddy’s copy of Maxim with her heel and sat with her ankles neatly crossed. She smiled up at Laura.

      Laura sighed and hurried into the kitchen, glancing anxiously at her watch. Dan had said he’d come round later, and she didn’t want the two to collide. Not that it was likely they would – he only ever turned up after the pubs shut, whereas her mum was usually in bed and fast asleep by that time. She hunted desperately in the cupboards as she waited for the kettle to boil, searching for biscuits of some description, but of course could find none, and then one of the kitchen unit doors finally gave up the ghost and pitched itself sideways, the MDF cracking and ripping as the door fell flat on the floor. ‘Shit,’ Laura said, picking it up and wedging it back into place again. She had heard similar sounds the previous night, very late, after Paddy had got back from a marathon drinking session, and suspected he might have done exactly the same thing himself, leaving it as a nasty surprise for her the next day. No biscuits, then. Laura grabbed some slightly soggy Carr’s water biscuits and took them back into the sitting room with the tea instead.

      ‘How nice,’ said Angela, taking one. ‘Hm.’

      ‘I couldn’t find any biccies,’ said Laura. ‘So sshh, just enjoy them.’

      ‘The flat’s looking nice,’ Angela said, obediently changing the subject. Laura gritted her teeth. Her mother was a Grand Master of the art of faking it. Laura knew she didn’t do it on purpose, but her superbly repressed nature meant that whenever an unkind or negative thought crossed her mother’s mind, she obviously felt she had to atone for it by saying the opposite of what she thought. It was quite a good barometer, actually. ‘What a lovely short skirt, darling!’ meant ‘I am embarrassed to go with you dressed like that to the Hunts’ wedding anniversary party, you look like a common prostitute.’ Or ‘Your friend Hilary is very lively, isn’t she? Dad loved talking to her,’ meant ‘Your friend Hilary drinks more than is socially acceptable at a barbecue buffet lunch in Harrow and is nothing more than a jail-bait husband-stealer.’

      ‘Thanks, Mum. It’s a bit of a tip at the moment. Paddy’s been on half-term and he just lazes round reading newspapers all day in his dressing gown.’

      ‘Ahh,’ said Angela fondly. She had more than a soft spot for Paddy. ‘How is James?’

      It was strange, Laura thought, musing over this, that James Patrick could read mothers – and his female friends – like open books, and yet be so disastrously out of sync with the opposite sex for the rest of the time. Half-term had been notable for Paddy’s attempts to catch the attention of the girl in the flat downstairs, which involved hanging around the stairwell and by the pigeonholes for half the day, and smiling mysteriously, raising the eyebrow he’d now learnt to raise, and generally looking like an unemployed spy. The girl in the flat downstairs – whom Laura had met, she was called Becky and seemed really nice – simply cast him looks of something amounting to concern for his mental state every time she saw him. He was despondent about it, because he really liked her. And before he’d decided he fancied her, and had started acting like a lunatic, they’d actually got on quite well, during the few times they’d chatted. Added to which, Mr Kenzo from the flat opposite now thought Paddy was clearly a delinquent or else some kind of dodgy sex practitioner, and spent a lot of time watching him watching Becky, which all contributed to the atmosphere of light comedy pervading the stairwell of the block of flats.

      ‘He’s fine. Bit gloomy at the moment.’

      ‘Any girls on the horizon?’ said Angela hopefully.

      Laura didn’t want to get into Paddy’s love life with her mother. She cast around for something else to say about him. ‘He’s giving me a hard time –’ Laura stopped, cursed herself and then went on, ‘– for not tidying up more,’ she finished, inwardly hugging herself for her own ingenuity.

      ‘Well, I’m sure he’s right,’ said Angela. ‘You are a bit messy. Still, it’s nice to live with someone who is too, isn’t it? You’re only young once, it does no one any harm to leave the Sunday papers strewn about once in a while.’

      ‘True, very true, Mum,’ Laura agreed with a grin. Angela sipped her tea and smiled back at her over her mug, a lovely smile with her eyes, and Laura thought how pretty her mum would be if she’d only do that more.

      ‘How’s Aunt Annabel?’ Laura said after a pause. Annabel had a beefy-faced husband and was the mother of the dreaded Lulu and Fran. A long time had passed since Laura and Simon happily played with Lulu and Fran on the beach in Norfolk as children. Now they were all grown-up, Lulu was a trust-fund skeleton who hung around with posh Eurotrash, and Fran was a porky, demented sports physio, with a loud, bellowing voice. Simon and Laura spent every family gathering trying to avoid them.

      Angela swallowed her tea daintily and said brightly, ‘Oh, she’s fine, I hear. Granny saw her a couple of weeks ago. Lulu’s got a wonderful new job reviewing restaurants and cafés for some magazine in Notting Hill. Isn’t that great?’

      Angela said this rather mechanically. Laura said incredulously, ‘How can Lulu have a job reviewing restaurants? She hasn’t eaten anything since 1991.’

      ‘Darling,’ said Angela. ‘Don’t be mean.’

      ‘Oh come on, Mum,’ Laura said. ‘She’s anorexic. It’s not right to be that thin.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘Why doesn’t Aunt Annabel do something about it? She could run the UN if she wanted to.’

      ‘They look at things in a different way from us, dear,’ Angela said vaguely. ‘They’re different. Thank god.’

      Laura was taken aback. Any criticism of their relatives coming from the mouth of her usually perfectly correct mother spoke volumes. But she said nothing, and instead pushed the IKEA catalogue on the coffee table towards her mother. ‘So, Mum,’ she said. ‘Show me the new sofa you like? And look – here’s the lamp I thought looked nice.’

      Angela grabbed the catalogue almost gratefully, and opened it. ‘The lamp with the blue shade, that’s the one you want?’

      Laura nodded. Angela looked genuinely excited, as she always did when a conversation about reasonably priced furnishings was in the offing. ‘And once you’ve put these blinds up – ooh, it’ll look really lovely, especially with spring coming,’ she said, drinking her cup of tea. ‘I should be on my way soon, you know. Dad’s back from Norway tonight and I ought to have something ready for him, poor thing.’

      Since Laura’s father George was an engineer, something slightly strange in IT development systems, neither Laura nor her brother ever fully understood what it was that he did. It seemed to involve lots of flying about on business, anyway. He was a manically overenthusiastic cook when at home, though, who loved everything from barbecuing to casseroling, and was more than happy to do the lion’s share of the catering in the Foster household. It had become borne in upon Laura over the years, however, that it was her mother who had always got stuck with the really mundane tasks, like the packed-lunch preparation or the spag bol on a Wednesday evening after work.

      ‘Ooh, what are you making?’ Laura asked.

      ‘Lasagne,’ said Angela firmly. ‘You know your father. He’ll be full of the joys of rollmops and herrings and smorgasbords. Well, I’m not having it, I’m really not. He can wait till summer’s here for that kind of thing.’ She drained the last of her tea and stood up. ‘Right, darling, I’ll be off.’

      ‘Oh, OK,’ said Laura. ‘Thanks so much for the blinds, Mum. They’re great. I love them.’

      ‘I’m glad, darling,’ said Angela, kissing her on the cheek. ‘Your Granny picked them out with me. She said they were very You. And – oh my goodness, that reminds me. I nearly forgot. Honestly, where am I these days?’

      ‘What?’ said Laura, handing her mother her coat.

      ‘Granny. You know it’s her eighty-fifth birthday in July? Well, we want to have

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