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  Yes, Dad. Like you haven’t said that about one million times already.

  Rachel’s mum’s standing at the open front door when Dad pulls up outside their house. She’s got a bit of a thing for Dad: she was probably waiting at the window, ready to leap up the minute she saw the car. She comes down the steps to speak to him.

  ‘Hi, Amanda,’ I say as I climb out. ‘You look nice.’

  She flushes. ‘Thanks, Emily.’

  She’s wearing new jeans and a rather nice blue wrap top. I think of Cassy, slumped on the sofa in her woolly jumper and sloppy old trousers. Dad probably doesn’t even notice.

  Dad winds down the window to speak to Amanda. ‘Thanks for having our Em. One day we’ll return the favour. We’ll have a big party, when the house is done.’

  Rachel bounds down the steps and gives me a hug. She looks at her mum, leaning over talking to Dad, and rolls her eyes. ‘Come on.’

  We leave them to it.

  ‘So?’ Rachel lolls back on the purple-and-silver sequinned bed quilt. ‘How are you?’

  ‘OK. Glad to be here.’ I sit with my back against the radiator. It’s the warmest I’ve been for about three weeks. ‘The caravan is freezing. It’s totally mad, us living there in the winter.’

  ‘You could always live here for a bit,’ Rachel says. ‘Mum loves it when you stay over. You can share my room.’

  I’m not sure how, exactly. It’s a bit difficult to see how the spare mattress is going to fit, even for one night. The floor is covered in so much junk you can’t see the carpet: paper, photos, files, books, shoes and bits of clothing. The desk is the same, with Rachel’s computer and speakers perched on top of the piles of stuff.

  Rachel sighs. ‘I’ve got masses of coursework to finish. Have you done yours?’

  ‘’Course not,’ I say. ‘Anyway, it’s Friday. There’s loads of time.’ I pick up her photography journal. There’s not much in it; a few good photos of a fairground, and some we took together, at a railway station in London.

  ‘Mr Ives said something really odd to me,’ I say.

  ‘What?’ Rachel’s only half listening; she’s checking text messages at the same time.

  ‘He said my photos were like Francesca’s.’

  Rachel looks blank.

  ‘You know, Francesca, who is my real mother?’

  ‘Yes, I know. But how come he does? That is weird. What else did he say?’

  ‘Nothing else. He just moved on to the next person.’

  ‘And you didn’t ask him? Honestly, Em!’

  ‘I was too shocked. I mean, it was so out of the blue. I only started thinking about it afterwards.’

  Rachel shakes her head at me. ‘You’re crazy, Em. You should have just asked Ivesy what he was going on about. I’ve never understood it, why you aren’t more curious about your real mum.’

  ‘’Cos it was all so long ago, I suppose, that she left. And she’s never bothered about us. Never once. So why should we care about her?’

  ‘Except it doesn’t work like that, does it?’

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘Perhaps Ivesy used to know her. Like, when they were young. At art college or something. He must be at least forty. How old is Francesca?’

  ‘’Bout the same, I suppose.’ My back’s too hot. I wriggle forward and stuff a pink cushion between me and the radiator.

  The truth is, I never think about Francesca being any age. It’s hard enough to think of her being real at all. Like, a normal person, living her life somewhere.

  Rachel’s staring down at me from the bed, a funny expression on her face. ‘Well, if she’s some famous photographer we can just look her up, can’t we?’

  ‘She’s not. Not famous,’ I say quickly. I’m wishing I’d never mentioned it all now. Stupid.

  ‘How do you know?’ Rachel’s already typing Francesca’s name.

  ‘I’ve already looked,’ I say.

  ‘Ah. So you are just the tiniest bit curious about her, after all.’

  ‘There’s no point, though,’ I say. ‘She doesn’t want anything to do with me and Kat. She never has. It was fourteen years ago, Rach. She’s never once contacted us. What does that tell you?’

  ‘Well . . . there might be millions of reasons why she’s not been in touch. For a start, you’re always moving house. It’s not that easy to keep track of you. Have you ever thought about that? You don’t even have a proper address, now. The caravan, a field. How’s she supposed to find you there?’

  I don’t answer. There is a box for mail, at the caravan site. There’s always ways and means of finding someone, I could say. But I don’t.

  Rachel’s in full flood. ‘She was probably ill. That’s why she left. We’ve done it in Psychology. Post-natal depression; that makes people do weird, awful things. My mum knew this woman with a six-week-old baby who jumped in front of a train –’

  ‘That’s too awful,’ I say. ‘But I wasn’t a baby. I was two, when she left. And she was in love with someone else. Kat knows about it. Kat can actually remember her.’

  ‘Supper’s ready!’ Amanda calls up from the kitchen.

  It’s a relief to go downstairs. I don’t want to talk about my mother any more. I’ve always thought I was fine about it all, and now I find I’m not. Mr Ives’ stupid remark is playing tricks with my head, stirring up stuff I hardly knew was there.

  We eat the most delicious vegetarian lasagne in the whole world, and home-made chocolate mousse for pudding: Amanda is the best cook ever. She’s about as different from Cassy as you could imagine. She loves cooking, and clothes, and she works in a video and DVD shop. She split up with Rachel’s dad about three years ago. He’s the only thing we are not allowed to talk about.

  ‘I’ve got out Two Days in Paris,’ Amanda says when we’ve washed up. ‘Want to watch it with me? It’ll be more fun for me with you two there.’

  The dialogue is really funny. There’s loads of sex in the film too. It’s not embarrassing, watching it with Amanda the way it would be with Cassy and Dad. She’s pretty relaxed about stuff.

  ‘Perhaps we should all go to Paris for a weekend,’ Amanda says. ‘The three of us, in the spring. Start saving up!’

  ‘I need a job,’ I say. ‘I want to get driving lessons too.’

  ‘I’ll ask in the shop for you, if you like,’ Amanda says.

  Rachel looks indignant. ‘What about me? I need a job more than Em. Em never spends money on anything.’

  ‘That’s why I need a job, silly. I don’t have any money, that’s why I don’t spend any.’

  ‘It’s never stopped me!’ Amanda laughs. ‘Still, I’ll ask around for both of you. Polly sometimes needs someone in the run-up to Christmas, in her shop. And there’s the market stall too. If you two can earn enough for spending money, I’ll pay for travel and a hotel in Paris.’

  Just as we’re dropping off to sleep (Rachel under her muslin drapes, between lilac sheets, me snuggled in a pink duvet on a pink futon mattress next to her), Rachel says, ‘We should ask Mr Ives straight out, what he meant about Francesca. Find out how he knows her. What she does. Where she is. We could find her, Em. Imagine that! After all this time.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I say. ‘Just leave it, now, Rach. Please?’ I turn over, pretend to be asleep. It’s not long before I can tell Rachel really is asleep, and I lie there in the dark, listening to all the familiar sounds of a normal house, in a normal busy street in a town at night: radiator pipes clanking, bath water running; sirens and traffic and voices as people go along the street; a dog barking. The street light glows orange through the bedroom curtains.

  Amanda comes out of the bathroom and crosses the landing into her room; finally she switches off the radio, and the house is quiet. The street noises settle down too. But I’m still awake, thinking about Francesca, and Paris, and Rachel’s take on the world. How everything to her is straightforward and simple and has an explanation.

  I haven’t mentioned Seb once.

 
; By the time Rachel and I get downstairs in the morning, Amanda’s already gone to work. She has left us a note, and ten pounds:

  Help yourselves to breakfast: croissants in the oven, fresh grapefruit in the fridge. Buy yourselves something nice for supper: I’m going out tonight.

  ‘Your mum’s really kind,’ I say.

  Rachel gives me her A-level Psychology look: sort of knowing and analytical. ‘She’s trying to buy our love, you realise. Lots of single parents do it, to make up for not being there. Because they feel guilty.’

  ‘You talk such rubbish,’ I say.

  ‘Shall I dry your hair?’ She looks at me still wrapped up in my white towel turban, smelling of Amanda’s expensive geranium and orange bath oil (for relaxation and a sense of balance).

  ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘I’m going to straighten it,’ Rachel says. ‘Smarten you up. I’ll do your make-up too.’

  By the time she’s finished, I don’t look like me. I purse my lips in the mirror: they’re sticky with dark red lipgloss and lipliner. My eyes are ringed with black, like a cat’s. I mess my hair up a bit with my hands.

  Rachel watches over my shoulder. ‘Leave it,’ she says. ‘You’re spoiling it!’

  We go down to the bottom of town first, to look at a jacket Rachel’s seen.

  We look at the stuff in the posh shops, but we only ever just look, because it’s all too expensive and in any case, the clothes are probably made by child labour and Third World exploitation and all that. It’s hard being ethical and fashionable. Next we go to the charity shops, because sometimes you get bargains in there.

  ‘This looks like your sort of thing!’ Rachel holds up a black vest, with a velvet edge.

  I find a skirt I like too. Three pounds for them both!

  ‘Now, coffee,’ Rachel says.

  We go to Madisons, upstairs in the mall, which means we go past Bob and his dog on the way. Bob’s this homeless bloke me and Kat have known for ages, from when he first had Mattie as a puppy. She’s a lurcher cross: smaller than your average lurcher, but skinny and beautiful.

  ‘Hello, Bob!’ I say. I give him a two-pound coin. ‘For your cup of tea.’

  ‘Thanks, sweetheart.’

  I pat Mattie. She stands up, as if to be polite, and then she turns round again three times and settles back on her blanket, curled round, watching me with her beady brown eyes.

  Rachel doesn’t approve. ‘That’s why you never have any money. And he’ll only spend it on booze or drugs,’ she says as we go up the escalator. ‘You shouldn’t encourage begging on the streets.’

  I don’t argue. Perhaps she’s right. But Bob’s had a sad and horrible time, and it isn’t fair, whatever she says, that he’s ended up homeless. He had a family once. He told me and Kat about it. He’s got a little girl somewhere he never sees. His girlfriend chucked him out and he lost everything.

  We call in to see Amanda, in the video shop. She’s busy at the counter, slipping DVDs into their boxes.

  ‘You can pick a couple of films for this evening, if you like,’ she says, as soon as she’s finished serving.

  ‘So, where are you going?’ Rachel asks.

  ‘Out,’ Amanda says.

  ‘With whom?’

  ‘Mind your own bees’ wax!’ Amanda says, but Rachel doesn’t laugh.

  We choose two DVDs from the New Releases shelf. Through the archway into the second room, I glimpse the back of a slim, dark figure that looks familiar. My heart does a little skip. He’s looking along the Foreign Films section. He’s wearing a shabby long coat, and black jeans, and he’s got a rather nice leather bag over one shoulder. I’m pretty sure it is Seb, but he doesn’t turn round, and I’m not ready to tell Rachel about him, not yet . . . so I don’t go up to check.

  ‘Come on, Rach,’ I say. ‘Let’s go and choose something nice for supper.’

  She’s still in a mood.

  I choose the pizzas (mozzarella and rocket) and chocolate ice cream.

  ‘Mothers! Yours and mine! What are they like?’ I say in a silly voice while we’re queuing for the checkout, to try and make her laugh, but that doesn’t work either.

  Back at her place, she goes on the computer for ages. I find a novel on the shelves they have in their bathroom (so you can read on the loo), and curl up on the squashy sofa in the living room to read it. It’s about a dead girl who is in heaven and can see everything happening down on earth; how sad her parents and friends are and all that. It’s quite a cool idea: I’ve always thought that it would be a shame to miss out on hearing all the nice things people say about you when you’re dead, at your funeral. At about six I go upstairs again. Rachel’s back at the computer, though the bed’s all ruffled up as if she’s been asleep.

  ‘Hey, Rach,’ I say. ‘This is silly. Why don’t we talk about it?’

  ‘What?’ she says, as if she didn’t know. She still won’t look at me.

  ‘Your mum. Her going out. You feeling like crap.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she lies. She’s chatting to Luke on MSN.

  ‘Are you getting hungry yet?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes.’ She looks up, finally. ‘Shall we cook?’

  * * *

  Finally, hours later, after the films and when we’re both in bed and the lights are out, Rachel starts to talk about her mum. It’s easier, talking in the dark.

  ‘It makes me sad,’ she says. ‘Knowing how lonely Mum is. Seeing her going out on these stupid dates. At her age.’

  ‘She’s not that old!’ I say. ‘And she seems fine to me.’

  ‘She doesn’t tell me where she’s going or who she’s seeing. I don’t really want to know, I suppose, and she knows that. Deep down, I still can’t help wishing she’d get back with Dad, even after all this time.’ She sniffs.

  Most of the time, Rachel is bright and cheerful, and you’d never guess there was this seam of sadness underneath it all. I remember her when we were about ten, blowing out her birthday candles and making a wish, when we still believed wishes would come true. She used to have the best birthday cakes ever, home-made by Amanda, in special shapes with coloured icing, different each year: a cat, a fairy castle, and one year a leaping dolphin.

  I try to put myself in her shoes, now. I try to imagine what she’s feeling about Amanda, so I can understand better. It’s quite hard: Dad and Cassy have always been there, as far back as I can properly remember, and my relationship with Cassy isn’t like mother and daughter at all. When I think about my real mother, there’s only a dark place, a sort of space where something ought to be.

  ‘About Francesca,’ I start saying.

  I sense Rachel’s listening.

  ‘I don’t feel sad, exactly,’ I say. ‘It’s not as if I’m missing her. How can I, when I don’t even remember her? There’s just a hollow feeling, where she ought to be but isn’t. I only started thinking about her again because of what Mr Ives said, as if I was like her in some way.’

  ‘I expect you are angry with her, deep down,’ Rachel says. ‘Like when someone dies, the people left behind feel abandoned and sad, but angry too. There are lots of different stages to grief. It must be the same thing for you.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ I say. ‘I don’t feel anything.’

  Only that isn’t quite true either, any more. Because if it was, why did I find myself looking at that book of stories she left behind? Tracing my finger over her name written in the front, as if there’s a clue hidden there, if only I could look long and hard enough?

  ‘When I was little,’ I tell Rachel, ‘and I shared a room with Kat, she used to tell me stories about Francesca.’

  She’d whisper them to me at bedtime, dripping words into my open ears, filling my head with them. Her voice was soft, like leaves falling, laying down the memories in layers. ‘Shh . . . Dad mustn’t hear us talking.’ Even then, Francesca was a secret.

  Rachel’s quiet for a bit, then she says something I’ll remember for ever. ‘I think I would want to know everything about my
mother. I would think it was a way of finding out something about myself. I’d want to know the ways I was like her, and the ways I was different.’

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘So what things did Kat tell you, exactly?’ Rachel asks.

  ‘She said Francesca was an artist, before she met Dad. She told me that Francesca called me Emily, because she liked all the famous artist and writer Emilys. She told me that Francesca fell in love with someone, another artist, and she gave up everything for love, to follow her heart.’

  I can hear Kat saying those words. Drip drip, in my ear.

  The words are so final: like a door shutting. Click!

  A rush of cold air. Then nothing.

  Rachel sighs. ‘It sounds so romantic: everything for love. Following your heart.’

  ‘Not when you think what she left behind, it doesn’t,’ I say. ‘Dad. Kat. Me. How could she do that? And if your own mother hasn’t a place in her heart for you, what does that mean? What kind of mother is she? Why on earth would you ever want to find her?’

  ‘Oh, Em!’ Rachel whimpers.

  Neither of us says anything else for ages. Rachel stretches out in the bed. I turn over. It’s impossibly hot.

  ‘Can I open the window?’

  ‘I’ll do it.’ Rachel leans over and pushes the window wide.

  A while later we hear footsteps along the path, and then the squeak of the metal gate. Keys rattling, the front door swinging open. I know Rachel’s straining to listen, to find out if her mother is by herself or if she’s brought someone back with her, for the night. But we don’t hear voices, just the usual, ordinary sounds of Amanda hanging up her coat, kicking off her shoes, traipsing upstairs. She runs a bath. At some point she stops outside our door.

  We both lie very still.

  Amanda pads along the carpeted landing again to the bathroom.

  Rachel lets out a long breath, as if she’s been holding it for ages, waiting, and listening.

  The radiators come on automatically at some early hour. The house seems stifling to me, too soft and carpeted and fussy. I just want to get back to the caravan now, even if it is so cold there. I need some fresh air. Breathing space.