‘OK. I know. I’m sorry.’ I try to disengage my hand but his fingers tighten round mine.
‘Don’t—’
I lean towards him and hold him tight as he wraps his arms around me. The warmth of his body flows into mine like an electric current. His hot cheek brushes against my face, his lips touch mine then pull away again; his breath is moist and urgent against my neck. I want him to kiss me so much, it hurts.
The door crashes open like the sound of a gunshot. We reel apart. Tiffin stands there, trailing his tie, his shirt untucked. His eyes are wide, flicking from my face to Lochan’s.
‘Wow, first one to be ready!’ My voice comes out shrill with false cheer. ‘Come here and I’ll do your tie. What d’you fancy for breakfast?’
He still doesn’t move. ‘What happened?’ he asks at length, his face worried.
‘Nothing!’ Lochan turns from making the coffee and gives him a reassuring smile. ‘Everything’s fine. Now, muesli, toast or both?’
Tiffin ignores Lochan’s attempts at distraction. ‘Why were you cuddling Maya?’ he asks instead.
‘Because – because – Maya was feeling a bit upset about this test she’s got today,’ Lochan replies raggedly. ‘She’s feeling very nervous.’
I nod in agreement, quickly erasing my false smile.
Unconvinced, Tiffin walks slowly over to his chair, forgetting his usual complaints as Lochan fills his bowl with muesli.
My heart is hammering. We only heard the door after it had swung open all the way and hit the corner of the sideboard. Did Tiffin see Lochan kiss my neck – notice my lips brush against his? Tiffin starts eating his muesli without further comment and I know he doesn’t believe our story. I know he senses something isn’t right. It’s almost a relief when Kit and Willa arrive, loud and complaining, one protesting about the breakfast menu, the other about the loss of her sticker album. I glance nervously at Tiffin but he stays unusually silent.
Lochan is clearly shaken too. The colour is high in his cheeks and he is gnawing at his lip. He knocks over Willa’s juice and spills cereal on the table. He downs coffee after coffee and tries to rush everyone through breakfast, even though it is not yet eight, and his eyes keep returning to Tiffin’s face.
After dropping the kids off at school, I turn to him and say, ‘Tiffin couldn’t have seen anything. There wasn’t time.’
‘He just saw you give me a hug and now he’s worried that you’re upset about something more serious than a test. I should never have come up with that pathetic excuse. But by this evening he’ll have forgotten all about it, or if he hasn’t, he’ll realize you’re OK. Everything’s fine.’
I can still feel the knot of fear in my stomach. But I just nod and smile reassuringly.
In maths, Francie chews gum and props her feet up on the empty chair in front, passing me notes about the way Salim Kumar is looking at me and speculating about what he would like to do with me. But all I can think is that something has got to change. Lochan and I have to find a way of being together without fear of interruption for at least a little while every day. I know that after what happened this morning, he isn’t going to touch me again while the others are in the house, which is basically whenever we are. And I still don’t understand why I can’t even stand close to him, hold his hand, rest my head against his arm while we are in an empty room. He says it makes it worse, but how could anything be worse than not touching him at all?
It’s my turn to pick up Tiffin and Willa today because Lochan has a late class. On the way home, they charge ahead as usual, giving me a heart attack at every road-crossing. When we get in, I sort out snacks and rummage through their book bags for teachers’ notes and homework while they fight over the remote in the front room. I put on a wash, clear away the breakfast things and go upstairs to tidy their room. When I return to the front room they have tired of TV, the Gameboy isn’t working properly and Tiffin’s neighbourhood friends are all out at football club. They start to bicker, so I suggest a game of Cluedo. Exhausted from the long week, they agree, and so we set up the game on the carpet in the front room: Tiffin lying on his front with his head propped up on his hand, his blond mane hanging in his eyes; Willa cross-legged at the foot of the couch, an enormous new hole in her red school tights revealing part of an even larger sticking plaster.
‘What happened to you?’ I ask, pointing.
‘I fell!’ she announces, her eyes lighting up in anticipatory relish as she begins her account of the drama. ‘It was very, very serious. My knee gashed open and there was blood all down my leg and the nurse said we was gonna have to go to hospital to get stitches!’ She glances at Tiffin to make sure she has a captive audience. ‘I hardly cried much at all. Only till the end of break time. The nurse said I was really brave.’
‘You had stitches!’ I stare at her, appalled.
‘No, ’cos after a while the blood stopped gushing out, so the nurse said she thought it would be OK. She kept trying to call Mum but I told her and told her it was the wrong number.’
‘What d’you mean, the wrong number?’
‘I kept telling her that she had to call you or Lochie instead, but she didn’t listen, even when I told her I knew the numbers off by heart. She just left a lot of messages on Mum’s mobile. And she asked me if I had a granny or a grandpa who could come and pick me up instead.’
‘Oh God, let me see. Does it still hurt?’
‘Only a bit. No—Ow – don’t take the plaster off, Maya! The nurse said I have to leave it on!’
‘OK, OK,’ I say quickly. ‘But next time, you tell the nurse she has to call me or Lochie. You say she has to, Willa, OK? She has to!’ I suddenly find myself almost shouting.
Willa nods distractedly, intent on setting out the pieces of the game now the account of her drama is over. But Tiffin is looking at me solemnly, his blue eyes narrowing.
‘Why does school always have to call you or Lochan?’ he asks quietly. ‘Are you secretly our real parents?’
Shock runs like icy water through my veins. I am unable to draw breath for a moment. ‘No, of course not, Tiffin. We’re just a lot older than you, that’s all. What – what on earth made you think that?’
Tiffin continues to fix me with his penetrating stare and I find myself literally holding my breath, waiting for him to comment on what he witnessed this morning.
‘’Cos Mum’s never here no more. Even hardly at weekends. She’s got a new family now at Dave’s house. She lives there and she’s even got new kids.’
I stare at him, sadness seeping through me. ‘It’s not her new family,’ I attempt at last in desperation. ‘They only stay over at the weekend and they’re Dave’s children, not hers. We’re her children. She just spends lots of time there at the moment because she works so late – it’s dangerous for her to come home in the middle of the night on her own.’
My heart is beating too fast. I wish Lochan were here to say the right thing. I don’t know how to explain it to them. I don’t know how to explain it to myself.
‘Then how come she’s never even here at weekends any more?’ Tiffin asks, his voice suddenly sharp with anger. ‘How come she never takes us to school or picks us up at hometime like she used to on her day off?’
‘Because—’ My voice wavers. I know I’m going to have to lie here. ‘Because she now works at weekends too and doesn’t take days off during the week any more. It’s just so she can earn more money to buy nice things for us.’
Tiffin gives me a long hard look, and with a start I see the teenager he will be in a few years’ time. ‘You’re lying,’ he says in a low voice. ‘All of you are lying.’ He gets up and rushes off upstairs.