Mum squeezed her hand. ‘Your father loves you.’
‘That’s different.’
‘It’s all we’ve got though. When it comes down to it, it’s all we have to hold on to.’
It felt like a belt tightening as Dad came down the stairs. Every muscle in Ellie’s body moved into tension as she watched him stack two new boxes on top of the others in the hall. It was like Tom was dead and they were clearing him out.
‘Is that his Xbox?’ Mum said. ‘Won’t Ben have things like that he can use?’
Dad snapped the lights on in the lounge and stood in the doorway, watching them blink into light. Surely he would stop being angry soon. Surely his fury would simply run out.
‘Ben’s at college all day,’ he said, ‘so Tom will be dependent on the parents’ hospitality. You want your son to feel uncomfortable, asking if he might please watch TV or perhaps borrow a console to help distract him from this nightmare?’
Mum didn’t answer and he shook his head at her as if that simply proved he was right. He strode off down the hallway to the downstairs bathroom. Ellie imagined him rooting through the cabinet in there, hunting down Tom’s shaving gear and deodorant, his favourite hair gel.
‘I suppose I should draw the curtains,’ Mum said. ‘It’s dark outside.’
But she didn’t move.
Dad came back in with Tom’s toilet bag in his hand. ‘How has this confession of yours helped anyone, Eleanor?’ he said. ‘How has it got any of us anywhere?’
‘It was the truth, Dad.’
‘The truth? Oh for God’s sake! I have never, repeat, never, seen your brother this way before. Is that what you wanted?’ He stabbed a finger at the ceiling. ‘He’s sitting up there on his bed, barely able to speak, let alone pack.’
‘Should I go up?’ Mum said.
‘You’re asking me?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘You’re his bloody mother – shouldn’t you know?’
‘I’m asking you if he wants me up there. If he needs me, I’ll go.’
‘Very noble of you.’ He looked down at their hands clasped together. It seemed to infuriate him more. ‘You should’ve stopped her. You should’ve nailed her bloody feet to the floor.’
‘I couldn’t stop her.’
‘Couldn’t? She’s a child, isn’t she? Do you have no control over your children?’ He scowled at her, his mouth a taut line of disapproval. Then he spun off and out, thumping furiously back up the stairs.
‘Oh God,’ Mum said, and she hid her face in her hands.
Ellie didn’t know what to say, or what to do. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. It was all she could think of.
She’d done nothing but apologize since they got back from the police station. Mum had sat everyone down in the lounge and told Dad not to interrupt, told Tom she loved him, then informed them both of the new statement Ellie had signed and of her relationship with Mikey. The accusations had gone on for hours.
Dad was climbing up into the loft now. Ellie could hear the creak of the step ladder. Maybe he was getting the Meccano down, the Lego, Tom’s toy farm. All the plastic animals – the cows and horses and sheep, the rows of geese and ducks – would soon be lined up at the door.
‘He’s not on my side at all,’ she said.
‘He is. Of course he is.’
But he wasn’t. She was sullied. Other. No longer his little girl. He had a new blind look, as if he might see someone he couldn’t bear if he looked at her properly.
‘Anyway,’ Mum said, ‘it’s not about sides. I sat in that police station and listened to you and I wanted two things at the same time. I wanted you to stop talking, because I didn’t want to hear terrible things about Tom, and I wanted you to talk all night, because I could see how much it was hurting you to hold it inside.’
She moved over to the window, slid all the pot plants back on the ledge and drew the curtains. The familiar swish was comforting.
Dad broke the spell by coming down with Tom’s cricket bag and balancing it carefully on the hall table, even though the cricket season hadn’t started yet and it could safely have stayed in the loft. Mum sat back down next to Ellie as he crossed the lounge to the drinks cabinet. He took no notice of either of them, poured himself a generous measure of whisky and took one, two, three gulps, swooshing each round his mouth before swallowing. He walked over to the window, reopened the curtains and looked out into the dark as if he was waiting for something. The press? TV crews? He thought this was enormous, bigger than all of them. His daughter had crossed the enemy line. She was anti‑Parker. No longer part of the team.
‘How many times did you meet the boy?’
This again. Ellie took a breath. ‘Not many.’
‘Where?’
‘I told you – different places. We went for walks mostly.’
He turned and narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Were you with him yesterday?’
She nodded. It had become imperative to tell the truth, as if any grain of goodness that was left in her life would slip away if she didn’t.
‘Where did you go? I don’t for one minute believe you were at the cinema.’
‘We went to the cottage.’
He blinked at her. ‘You broke in?’
‘The keys were under the pot.’
He took a step forward and glared down at Mum. ‘Did you know this?’
‘Ellie told me, yes.’
‘And you didn’t bother mentioning it?’
‘In the great schemes of things, it felt rather minor.’
‘Rather minor? Well, I’m telling you now, if that place gets ransacked or squatted it will feel rather major, I assure you!’ He slammed the empty tumbler on the coffee table and turned to Ellie. ‘What the hell were you doing there for so long?’
Mum squeezed her hand. This wasn’t the time to share the conversation they’d had in the café after the police station.
‘We cooked potatoes.’
‘In the grate? Christ, girl, you could have burned the place down!’
‘But she didn’t,’ Mum said, sitting forward, ‘and surely that’s the point? I don’t think her friend’s likely to ransack the place either.’
‘Her friend? What’s got into you?’
She shook her head at him sadly. ‘I could ask you the same question.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
She didn’t answer and he scooped up his tumbler and went back to the drinks cabinet. ‘You’ll be taken apart in court, you know that, Eleanor? That’s where this is going.’
‘Should you be drinking?’ Mum said. ‘You have to drive the car in a minute.’
He rejected her with a wave. ‘All the sordid details of your little romance will be laid out in court for everyone to see. I hope you’re ready for that. I hope you’ve thought very carefully about it.’
‘It wasn’t sordid.’
He stopped pacing. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said it wasn’t what you think.’
‘Oh, is that right? What was it then, a fairytale romance? Mills and Boon? My God, girl, your brother’s up there packing his bags and you sit here defending some school‑girl crush!’
‘Stop talking to her like that!’ Mum stood up, fists clenched.
He stared at her, slack‑jawed.
‘This is your daughter,’ she said. ‘Have you forgotten? Can you for a second consider the possibility that this isn’t easy for her either?’
He did consider it. Ellie saw it cross his face – something sad like a shadow. But then he dismissed it and the blind look took over again. ‘I’m trying to help,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to help them both, isn’t that obvious?’
Mum sighed. ‘Come with me. Come and help me get Tom’s suitcase. It’s in the loft and I need you to pass it down.’
Ellie leaned back on the sofa and listened to them go upstairs. She counted breaths. Every breath, every heartbeat, was one less until maybe things stopped hurting this much. She picked at her nails, inspected her fingers. Even her hands looked unfamiliar. She didn’t belong. She was the terrible stranger who’d destroyed everything warm and good.