Closest Kept

16

The bike clattered against the wall. The takeaway bag fell to the carpet. “Vi!” My little sister was sitting on my actual sofa next to Amy, her legs curled up under her as if she sat there every day.

Quickly, I hurried over to take her in my arms before she could vanish in a puff of smoke, having to bend awkwardly to do it, inhaling her scent—something spicy, something lemony—her shoulder blades fragile beneath my fingers.

Violet suffered my embrace for a full ten seconds before she pushed me off.

“No offence, Lil, but you stink of hospitals.”

There it was, the familiar cocktail of hurt and guilt inside my chest, but at least now there was a fair helping of relief too.

The words poured from me. “Where have you been? What have you been doing? Why haven’t you been in touch?”

“Jesus, can I at least have another cup of coffee before I answer all that? And some of that curry I can smell if you aren’t planning on eating it?”

“I’m sorry, Violet,” said Amy, “I didn’t think to offer you anything to eat, what with it being so late.”

Poor Amy. I didn’t suppose she felt she could just go to bed and leave Violet waiting for me and she was normally fast asleep in bed by eleven o’clock. She must be exhausted. And sick to death of my friends and family.

“Can I get myself a plate? I’m guessing the kitchen’s through there?”

When Violet got to her feet I saw a large, fading bruise on her cheek. A hint of a black eye.

My mouth engaged before my brain. “What happened to your face?”

She stared at me with angry eyes, letting her hair swing forwards. “I fell,” she said, her tone saying, “ Mind your own fucking business. ”

“Are you all right, Lily?” Amy asked when we were alone. “You’re shaking.”

I struggled out of my jacket. Tossed it onto the back of a chair. Thanked the gods, social services, my old neighbour, whoever it was that had passed my address on to Violet.

“Yes. It’s just been quite a night, one way or another. And it’s been so long since I saw Violet.”

“Four or five years, she said.”

“Something like that. You’ve been chatting, then?” Of course they had. Had I expected them to have just been sitting in silence for hours, waiting for me to get back?

“Yes, she’s been entertaining me with stories of her adventures abroad.”

I nodded, less concerned at the moment with my sister’s adventures than I was with the bruising on her face. “Did she tell you how she got the black eye?”

“ She got drunk and walked into the edge of a door,” said Violet, returning with a plate and fork and holding out her hand for the takeaway bag.

I picked it up and gave it to her, watching as she opened the foil trays and helped herself, leaving deposits of curry and rice on the coffee table.

She began to eat, then looked up at us. “What is this?” she asked. “A spectator sport?” The words were tossed off—irritable rather than jokey.

Amy made for the door, taking her cue. “I’ll leave you guys to it. I’ve got an early start tomorrow.”

I nodded, smiling, doing my best to act like a normal person. “That’s right, you’re teaching in Fakenham, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “And you’re in Cromer starting that new course?”

“Yes.”

She smiled. “We’re proper jet-setters, your sister and I, Violet.”

“Aren’t you, just?” said Violet, mopping up curry sauce with a torn off piece of chapatti.

“Well,” Amy said, “I hope it goes well tomorrow, Lily. Good to meet you, Violet.”

“Night, Amy.”

“She seems nice,” said Violet, after she’d gone.

I frowned. Violet had made it sound like a criticism.

“What? I said she seemed nice,” said Violet, rifling through the takeaway bag. “Didn’t you get any naan bread?”

“Take a look in the bag. It was bought for me; I don’t know what’s in there.” I sat down in the armchair opposite her, suddenly feeling totally wiped out by the events of the day. “Where have you been all this time, Vi?”

Violet was wearing a loose-necked top that left one shoulder bare. She shrugged the naked shoulder. “India, China, Vietnam, Brighton, Lewisham ...”

“Lewisham? When were you in Lewisham?”

“Ever since I got back to the UK six months ago. Some friends have a squat there.”

I stared at her, hurt. “Why didn’t you get in touch?”

“You’ve been busy with your life, anyway, by the sound of it. Teaching. Dumping your boyfriend, from what Amy tells me.”

“I didn’t dump Alex.”

“No?”

“No. We split up because we wanted different things. It’s complicated. I don’t really want to talk about it. Not now, anyway. Tell me about some of the countries you’ve visited, what you’ve been doing.”

She looked at me. “It’s complicated. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Vi, don’t be like that.”

“Like what? You want to know about the world, you go out and discover it yourself.”

I sighed. Vi had been a bit snarky when we’d met at the café before she’d gone travelling, but this was on a whole different level. Where had my sweet, loving sister gone? What had happened to make her so defensive? “If you must know, Alex and I broke up because he decided he wanted kids, and I ...”

“Don’t tell me. Your experience of taking care of me was so good, you don’t want to repeat it in case looking after your own kid doesn’t match up?”

That hurt. I took a breath. “Vi, I willingly took care of you.”

“Oh, yeah.”

I had a sudden, vivid flashback to meeting up with Violet with one of her foster mothers six months after she’d been taken into care. Of Violet launching herself into my arms, clinging and sobbing. “ Please don’t send me back, Lily. Please don’t send me back. I want to live with you. Please. ”

I’d held her, heartbroken, desperately trying to think of a way I could take care of her but unable to come up with any ideas at all. I was sixteen—too old to go into the foster-care system. All I had was one tiny room in the seedy hostel I’d been placed in, which I shared with ten other young people, most of whom I wouldn’t want my eight-year-old sister to come within a hundred yards of.

The foster mother came to my rescue. Sort of.

“Lily can’t take care of you, Violet. She hasn’t got anywhere for you to stay. Besides, she’s only a child herself really.”

Never mind that it was technically true. I’d looked after Violet all her life, so what was different now? That was what would be going through Violet’s mind, I knew it. She hugged me even tighter. “Please, Lily. Please.”

In the end the foster mother practically had to drag Violet away, kicking and screaming. She certainly wasn’t in any hurry to arrange for Violet and me to meet up again, and I had no idea whether Violet had begged to see me or not. All I knew was that by the time I did get to see my little sister again months later, a force field had gone up—a coldness and a distance that had never been there before and which Violet seemed determined I would never break down.

“I’ve just never wanted children, that’s all. I’d be an awful mother. Half the time my mind’s on my art. I’m always in a daydream, creating art in my head.”

“Is that why you’re working in a hospital? Because you want to do your art so much?”

I frowned at her sarcasm. “No, Vi, that’s so I can live. It’s not easy to make money from selling paintings. Besides, having children wasn’t the only reason Alex and I split up. We just weren’t a good fit for each other any longer. But I can’t say it hasn’t been hard, because it has. I still really miss him.” I sighed, rubbing my tired face with my hands. “It’s good to see you, Vi. I wish you’d got in touch sooner.”

Another shrug. I doubted whether I’d ever find out what she’d been doing in Lewisham. And probably very little about her travels around the world—how she’d survived, who she’d met, what she’d seen. But perhaps that was just as well. And it didn’t really matter, anyway, did it? She was here. She was safe.

“Are you crying?”

I was. “I do seem to be, yes.”

“Most people smile when they’re happy about something,” Vi said, pushing her plate away. “Anyway, where am I going to sleep? I’m guessing there’s only two bedrooms. Unless Amy’s in your room, and you and her are an item? Is that one of the reasons you and Alex aren’t a ‘good fit’ anymore?”

She yawned a huge yawn, stretching her arms up to the ceiling, the bruise on her face picked out by the overhead light.

I didn’t bother responding to the dig, even though it hurt. Vi’s bitterness towards me didn’t seem to have calmed down any, so there would probably be plenty more where that came from. “You can sleep on the sofa. I’ll get you some bedding.”

She was out like a light almost as soon as I’d thrown a duvet over her. My little sister. All grown up now. Though, asleep as she was, I could still see traces of the little girl who’d sat on my lap while I read her a bedtime story.

“Are you going to stand there watching me all night?” she asked drowsily.

I smiled. “Good night, Vi.”

“Night, sis.”

I got ready for bed myself, then lay there in the darkness, not trying to sleep. Vi back, after all this time. I wanted to call Inga to tell her about it. But I couldn’t, because besides the fact that it was two in the morning, Inga was probably right in the middle of breaking Matt’s heart thanks to what I’d said to him earlier. Shit, what a night. What had I done? Inga was going to kill me. I just hadn’t been able to bear Matt not knowing the truth. I’d only just about managed to keep quiet the last time.

I longed suddenly for someone to speak to about it all. Not just about Matt and Inga, but Violet too. Alex, I supposed. But then, Alex had only ever known a few bare facts about Violet, hadn’t he? I’d never told him what happened that night, so he’d never really understood. Maybe, if he could meet Violet now, he might. Only he wouldn’t be meeting my sister anytime soon because I wouldn’t be speaking to him anytime soon.

I wrapped my arms around my body, accepting the bald truth that there was nobody to share the news of Vi’s return with right now. That it would have to be enough to hold it in my heart.

Had Vi really fallen against the edge of a door when she was drunk? It was certainly possible. So why was it so much easier to believe somebody had hit her? I could even picture it; see Vi’s head snapping back from the force of a fist making contact. But that was a memory, wasn’t it? Mum, not Vi. Alec? Grant?—I couldn’t remember which of them—had hit her fairly frequently, often when Vi or I were in the room. Mum would hide away for a week or so, then carry on as if nothing had happened.

I thought of the women I’d met when I was working at the women’s refuge, wondering if they were all still living there, or whether they’d found homes now. If only Mum had taken me and Vi to a refuge to get help to make a new start. What would our lives have been like if she had? If she’d been given help and counselling to try to change her patterns of behaviour? A safe, secure base to make a fresh start? But then, Mum would probably have abused the system and ruined it all for us—smuggled alcohol in. Had a party. Fallen out with the other women. Victim as she was, she was also capable of being the aggressor.

No, Mum would never have fit in at a refuge. She hadn’t wanted to escape. Would have sworn blind she had nothing to escape from.

Inevitably, because I’d slept badly, it was hard to wake up the next morning. Amy, bless her, knocked on my door.

“Lily? Shouldn’t you be getting up to catch your train? Cup of tea outside your door.”

I sat up to look at the clock as I heard Amy go downstairs. Shit. There was no time to drink tea. Or to have breakfast. Dressing quickly, I charged downstairs with my teaching things, leaving them at the bottom of the stairs while I dashed into the bathroom. By the time I emerged, Amy was ready to leave, standing outside the closed sitting-room door.

“No sign of my sister yet?”

Amy shook her head. “No, I think she’s still asleep.” She looked at the canvas I’d propped against the wall. “You aren’t thinking of taking that on the train, are you? It looks a bit windy out today. Sorry I can’t give you a lift to the station.”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t expect you to,” I said, eyeing the canvas doubtfully. It was one of my old seal paintings—I was taking it to illustrate what I wanted my students to do in the session. If I’d been more organised I’d have taken photographs to show them instead, but it was too late now. If I messed around getting a good image, I’d miss the train for sure.

“Anyway, see you later. Hope it goes well.”

“You too.”

Amy let herself into the darkened sitting room to reach the front door. I picked up the canvas and the rest of my teaching things and followed her. The blind was still down, but I could see Violet in the half light, still fast asleep.

“Vi?”

When she didn’t stir, I shook her gently. “Violet?”

“What?” A grumpy croak.

“I have to go to work now. There’s a spare key on the kitchen counter. Help yourself to any food you can find to the right of the fridge. The stuff on the left is Amy’s. Don’t touch that, okay?”

No answer.

“Okay, Vi?”

“Got it. No food on the left.”

I nodded. Not that Violet could see that with her eyes closed. “That’s it. See you later. I’ll be back around four.”

Half an eye opened. “I might be gone by then.”

“Gone where?”

Violet yawned hugely. “To Nottingham, to look for my dad.”

“ What? ”

“I told you that last night, didn’t I?”

“No, you didn’t.”

I would most definitely have remembered that.

“Well, I got a lead he might be living there, so I thought I’d look him up.” Violet opened her eyes—finally—and saw my expression. “What? What’s wrong with that?”

There was so much wrong with it, it was difficult to know where to start. Like why on earth she would want to look up somebody who’d never bothered to play a part in her life—somebody who’d left when Violet was only months old, a person our mother had always described as a useless drug addict. But there was no time to get into it now. If I missed my train and failed to turn up for my teaching, that would probably be the end of my career with adult education—Community Department, Leisure Department, or whatever other department they came up with.

“I’ve got to go, Vi,” I said. “Please stay a bit longer so we can catch up properly. Please. Or if you really can’t, then at least give me a way to keep in touch.”

“All right.”

“Promise me, Vi.”

“All right!” she snapped, turning her back on me, eyes closed, face pressed into the sofa cushions.

I sighed. “See you later then.”

I headed for the door. She didn’t answer.

Amy was right. It was breezy. It was a nightmare negotiating the canvas to the station. Gusts of wind kept turning it into a sail, practically lifting me off my feet, making me bash into other pedestrians, parked cars, and brick walls. When I finally turned into the station, there was only a minute to go until my train left, and I still had to negotiate the automatic ticket barriers with the canvas. Thank God I’d bought my ticket in advance.

I ran up the platform, calling to the guard to wait, pulling open the nearest door and hauling my belongings in after me. Then I stood for a moment to catch my breath, my bags and the canvas dumped in the space next to the luggage racks.

Finally, after I’d recovered a bit, I took my phone from my bag to see if there were any messages from Inga. Only to see I had ten missed calls from her. Shit. With Vi turning up, I’d forgotten to take it off silent after my shift.

“Inga?”

“Where’ve you been? I’ve been calling and calling.”

“I’m sorry. My sister turned up after work, and I forgot to unmute my phone.”

“Violet turned up?”

“Yes. It turns out she’s been back in the country for months, but only just bothered to get in touch. Are you all right?”

Inga sounded angry. “No, I’m not bloody all right. Matt was packing when I called you last night. He’s gone to a hotel. Why did you have to tell him, Lil? I said I’d do it in my own time. I wasn’t ready for it.”

“I didn’t tell him,” I said, but there was no conviction in my voice.

“You as good as told him. He confronted me as soon as he got in. Kept on at me until I broke and told him. It was awful. He was so hurt.”

Of course he’d been hurt. What the hell had she expected? He’d have been hurt whenever he found out. Poor Matt. I hoped he was all right.

“I’m sorry,” I said, but, as hard as it had been, I knew I’d probably do the same again. Matt had deserved to know.

“Yeah, well, look, I’ve got to go now. I was just leaving for work. I’ll call you later, okay?”

When she hung up, tears filled my eyes. I knew she was upset, that she was cross with me for forcing the issue. And we were never cross with each other, Inga and me. I sniffed, worn out by emotion and lack of sleep.

The wind was even stronger in Cromer, coming straight off the sea. By the time I reached the community centre where I was teaching, I was sweating and exhausted, and there was a small tear in my canvas from where it had been blown against the corner of a broken flint wall. The painting meant so much to me—it captured the joyful movement of the seals in their natural habitat. It also reminded me of the night Inga and I had first met Alex and Matt. And now it was damaged, just like our relationships.

Matt would be able to repair it—he was good at things like that. If he didn’t decide to up sticks and move to a different city to get over all this. If seeing me didn’t remind him too much of Inga. If, if, if.

Oh, God. Alex was gone from my life, Inga was mad with me, and Violet was like a prickly, defensive sea urchin. If I didn’t see Matt much anymore, I’d not only miss him like crazy, I might well fall apart altogether. And why the hell had I thought it was a good idea to bring the canvas today, anyway? I could have sat down and cried, right there on the high street, but I had to be an adult and press on to the community centre to teach my course.

When I finally arrived at the centre, I paused on the threshold, giving myself a talking to. I was an inspirational tutor on a mission to share my enthusiasm and my skills with a receptive audience. Not a recently ditched woman whose long-lost sister had just turned up out of the blue and whose friends were currently going through hell. The tear in my canvas could definitely be repaired, as could my life.

I pushed open the door and went in. The centre manager was waiting for me.

“Hi, I’m guessing you’re Lily, the art tutor?”

“Yes, that’s right. I hope I’m not late?”

It had taken me longer than I’d expected to walk from the station, especially with the painting flapping about.

“Not at all. Your students are all here—they do like to arrive early to chat—but you’ve got time to make yourself a quick coffee to take in with you. I expect you could do with one as you’ve come from Norwich. Let me show you the kitchen.”

Coffee made, I paused on the threshold of the classroom, to arrange a smile on my face. Then I pushed the door confidently open. Unfortunately, it was heavier than I’d expected it to be. Coffee sloshed down my leg.

“Ow!”

The buzz of conversation in the room abruptly stopped.

“Are you all right, dear?” A grey-haired lady rushed over to take the dripping mug from my hand. “I think you’d better mop yourself down before that stains. I’m Percy, by the way—it’s short for Persephone—and this is, well, everybody.”

I looked out at a sea of faces—well, nine or ten probably, but with coffee dripping down my trouser leg, feeling humiliated by my disastrous entrance, it seemed like a sea. “Hello, Percy, everyone. I’ll just go and ...”

When I returned with my soggy, sponged-down trousers, my coffee had been replenished, and the seal painting was hanging in a place of pride on the wall. Everyone was so absorbed in looking at it, they barely glanced in my direction.

“It makes you want to be a seal, doesn’t it?” Percy was saying dreamily, her chin cupped in her hands, and I smiled, suddenly relaxing, sensing that this class was going to be okay.

As the hours passed, the grey heads emerged as people—Iris, a recently retired shop manager, Clive, who had wanted to train to be an artist but who had been persuaded by his parents that banking was a more secure career. Jean, who wanted to paint with her grandchildren.

I told them all how I’d got into painting seals and that trying to capture movement and observing the rhythms of nature could be a good way to free yourself up and to get away from a restrictive obsession to make everything photographically accurate. With my guidance, those who were able to do so stood to make sketches from my seal painting, moving their whole arm instead of just their hand, putting their whole body into the marks they made on paper.

“Wait ’til I tell my wife I’ve been doing modern art,” Clive said, pleased as punch when I told him he’d captured the dancing movement of the seals perfectly.

I was tired as I made my way back to the station later, but relieved the session had gone well, already thinking about what to do with the class the following week.

It was only when I was on the train that everything else returned to sour my mood again. I sighed, gazing out of the window at the passing Norfolk landscape, then pulled my phone out to check for messages. Nothing from anybody. Not from Violet, Inga, or Matt. God.

I sent Inga a text.

Hope you’re ok. Will call later. XXX

Then I put my phone away and went back to staring out of the window. Only at some point I must have closed my eyes because suddenly we were arriving at Norwich station, and the guard was telling us the train terminated there and not to forget to take all our belongings with us. So, I hauled myself up, retrieved my bags and the canvas and trooped along the platform to negotiate the automatic-ticket barrier again. Only to find, when I emerged from the station building, that it was raining—and not just a light drizzle my painting might recover from, but torrential rainforest-like rain, bouncing off pavements, sending people scurrying across the station car park with unlikely items held over their heads in a futile attempt to stay dry.

Shit. There was nothing for it but to join the very long taxi queue, which was going to eat right into my earnings for the day.

When I finally got home, dripping wet despite the taxi, it was to find the house in darkness. Amy had probably dropped in to see her parents on her way home. But where was Violet? Had she broken her promise and left already? I checked the kitchen worktop—the spare key had gone—then I changed my clothes, towel-dried my hair and made myself a cup of tea, sitting in the same spot on the sofa Violet had taken last night. The duvet was screwed up on the armchair—the only sign, apart from the missing key and the faintest trace of that spicy, lemony scent she’d been wearing, that Violet had ever been here at all.

Tears filled my eyes. I blinked them away, lying back against the cushions, the stresses and triumphs of my day eclipsed as I wondered when I’d see Violet again. Whether she’d just slipped out somewhere locally, which might give us the chance to reinstate our relationship, or whether she was already in Nottingham on the trail of her father.

I’d never been interested in knowing my own father, but Violet had always wanted to know about hers. She’d come home from school one day—no doubt after being exposed to other kids with two parents—and asked me whether I knew who and where he was. The only time I’d asked Mum where he’d gone, she’d said he was “ That fucking useless, drug-taking wastrel? Who bloody cares? ” so I didn’t tell Violet to speak to Mum about it. I don’t remember exactly what I said. I probably fobbed her off with some rot without actually lying to her—but whatever it was, it had clearly done nothing to dissolve my sister’s happy-ever-after fantasies of a loving dad, because here she was, nearly twenty years on, still hankering after him.

If Violet had gone to Nottingham, she’d done so without leaving me her phone number, so the ball was in her court. I might harbour dreams of us working on our relationship and becoming closer again, but as usual, Vi held all the power. She would get in touch, or she wouldn’t, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. After my initial surge of joy when I’d let myself into the house and seen her here on the sofa, it was an utter letdown.

But if I couldn’t do anything about Violet at the moment, I could do something about Matt. Even if it was just to phone him to check up on him. It wasn’t being disloyal to Inga to make sure he was all right.

He answered on the second ring. “Lily.”

“Matt. I’ve been thinking about you all day. How are you?”

“Inga told you, then? Of course, she did. How am I? Angry. Sad. Bulldozed. About what you’d expect, I suppose when you discover your partner’s pregnant with another man’s child.”

It hurt so much to hear the pain in his voice. That note of extreme weariness I’d become so familiar with myself lately.

“I’m so sorry.” It was all I seemed to say lately and completely inadequate. But it was true. I was sorry. Sorrier than I could say. He didn’t deserve this.

“I feel like such an idiot, Lily. If you hadn’t said what you said last night, I’d have coasted on without a clue. God, even when she was telling me, actually saying the words, it didn’t click at first. I thought she was telling me we were pregnant. That we were having a baby together. I was so busy trying to get my head round the fact that I was going to be a father, I didn’t register what she was actually saying. That she’d fucked somebody else. Was pregnant by somebody else.”

“Oh, Matt ...” I couldn’t say I was sorry again.

“Did you know about it, Lily?” He sighed. “I know I shouldn’t ask. I get that you’re in a tricky position, I do. But ... did you?”

A wave of shame washed over me. Along with another sense of panic that he might blame me. That I might lose my closeness to both Matt and Inga over this. “Not for a long while, no. I swear, Matt. Then, when she did tell me, when I knew she was pregnant, I begged her to speak to you. She said she would. She promised. But she kept on putting it off. I suppose she knew ... what would happen when she did tell you.”

“What really gets to me is knowing she could have got rid of the baby—gone off somewhere to have an abortion without me knowing anything about it. That we’d have continued on together, Matt and Inga, me worrying that she didn’t seem herself, perhaps—but never having a clue what she’d done.”

Oh, God. Even if he forgave me for not telling him this time, the sword of Damocles would still be hanging over me. Were Matt ever to find out about the abortion—if he and Inga had a row sometime in the future and it came out, my friendship with Matt would still potentially be on the line. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

The front door opened. Amy. She gave me a little wave and walked through to the kitchen, closing the sitting-room door behind her. As tactful and considerate as ever. I really was lucky to have found her as a flatmate.

“She’s just not who I thought she was for all those years, you know?” Matt was saying. “Not if she can do this to me. And I can’t stop thinking about all that wasted time.”

He was almost making Inga sound evil now, and she wasn’t. Just misguided. Impulsive to the point of reckless at times. She’d never set out to deliberately hurt Matt, I knew that.

“She really loved you, Matt. I’m sure she still does.”

“Yeah. Just not enough, eh?” He sighed. “Look, I’ve got to go. I appreciate you ringing, though, Lily.”

“You will keep in touch, won’t you?”

“Of course. Take care.”

Did he really mean that? Or was it just the kind of thing people say? I wanted to push further; to arrange something definite, but it was too late. Matt had gone, and my stomach suddenly felt as if something had died in it. My phone was warm in my hand. As if it had been heated up by what I’d concealed from Matt. I put it down on the coffee table and put my face in my hands for a minute. Then I went to find Amy.

“Hi. How did your session go?” she asked.

“Really well, thanks. It’s just everything else that’s a mess. Matt and Inga have broken up.”

Amy looked shocked. “Oh, no. That’s terrible.”

“And my sister seems to have left without saying goodbye.” I noticed Amy still had her jacket on and was now holding her purse and a shopping bag. “Don’t tell me she ate your food? I told her, nothing from the left of the fridge.”

“Well ...”

“God, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. I needed to get some things, anyway. Is there anything you want?”

To turn back the clock twelve months?

“No, thanks.”

There was a knock at the door. Had Vi lost her key? I went to open it, but it wasn’t Vi at all, it was Inga, her face flushed. Still angry with me, by the looks of it.

“Inga,” I said. “Hi. How are you?” What a ridiculous question. How could she be anything but wrecked, desperate and sad after splitting up with Matt?

She pushed past me into the living room. “How the hell d’you think I am?”

I closed the front door. “I’m so ...”

“You’re so sorry. I know. You said.”

She’d been drinking, I could tell.

“You didn’t drive here, did you?”

Her eyes flashed at me angrily. “So what if I did? And don’t try and tell me I ought not to be drinking because I’m pregnant.”

“Well ...”

“No, don’t you dare. I mean it. Why the fuck didn’t you let me speak to him in my own time, Lily? Why?”

I sank down onto the sofa. “Because Matt’s always so good to me. To everyone. I just ... I couldn’t bear to live a lie. I told you that, over and over.”

“We were friends first, Lily. It feels like you chose him over me.”

I shook my head at her, feeling suddenly exasperated, angry, and desperately sad. “We’re thirty, not three, Inga. I care about you both. I don’t want to have to choose between you. Why didn’t you tell him straightaway, as soon as you knew?”

Inga slumped down next to me, her face in her hands. “Because I was waiting to see if I’d miscarry, idiot.”

“Oh, Inga.”

“What? Plenty of people do in the first few months. I thought ... if I lose it, I wouldn’t have to tell him. It would be like it never happened.”

I remembered what Matt had just said about how he and Inga would have carried on together with him in complete ignorance. I couldn’t believe Inga had been waiting, perhaps hoping, to miscarry. It was the kind of thing a schoolgirl would do. But what did I know? I’d never been in her position.

Inga swiped at her eyes. “Jesus, Lily, you should have seen his face when I told him. So cold. He’s never looked at me like that before. He hates me.”

“He’ll have been hurting, that’s all. He doesn’t hate you. He loves you.”

“You wouldn’t think so if you’d seen his face. It was the same way Mum looks at me sometimes. Like I’m a crushing disappointment to her. But let’s face it, I’m a crushing disappointment to everyone. Aren’t I? Especially myself.”

Since I was so disappointed with Inga myself for the way she’d treated Matt, I didn’t, at that precise moment in time, have an answer to that.

But what was done was done, wasn’t it? Inga would be mad at me for a while, I’d be disappointed in her for a while, but I didn’t really think the two of us were going to end our friendship because she’d made a mistake, and I’d forced her hand to come clean about it.

“You wait,” Inga went on. “My child’s going to take one look at me and my life and ask to go back again.”

I tried to smile. “She won’t.”

“He,” she said, her fingers plucking at one of Amy’s cushions.

A rush of emotion. “You know the sex?”

She nodded. “Mm-hmm. I had a scan the other day.”

“Oh, Inga, that’s ...” I wasn’t sure what the right word was.

“Definite,” she supplied. “That’s what it is. This little fucker is coming into my life, disaster zone or not. And you’re going to be Auntie Bloody Lily, all right?”

I nodded, tears dripping from my eyes. “All right.”