‘Two years ago?’
‘Where’s the corkscrew, love?’
All was noise and chaos. The kitchen was filled with steam and the smell of garlic. At its far end two clothes-horses sagged under several loads of washing. Every surface, mostly stripped pine, was covered with books, piles of paper or children’s drawings. Phil stood and shook his hand, then excused himself. ‘Got a few emails to answer before supper. You don’t mind?’
‘You must be appalled,’ his sister said, plonking a glass in front of him. ‘You’ll have to excuse the mess. I’ve been on late shifts, Phil has been flat out and we haven’t had a cleaner since Rosario left. All the others are a bit pricey.’
He had missed this chaos. He missed the feeling of being embedded in a noisy, thumping heart. ‘I love it,’ he said, and her eyes scanned his swiftly for sarcasm. ‘No. Seriously. I love it. It feels …’
‘Messy.’
‘That too. It’s good.’ He sat back in his chair at the kitchen table and let out a long breath.
‘Hey, Uncle Ed.’
Ed blinked. ‘Who are you?’
A teenage girl with burnished gold hair and several thick layers of mascara on each eye grinned at him. ‘Funny.’
He looked at his sister for help. She raised her hands. ‘It’s been a while, Ed. They grow. Leo! Come and say hello to Uncle Ed.’
‘I thought Uncle Ed was going to prison,’ came the cry from the other room.
‘Excuse me for a minute.’
His sister left the pan of sauce and disappeared into the hall. Ed tried not to hear the distant yelp.
‘Mum says you lost all your money,’ said Justine, sitting down opposite and peeling the crust from a piece of French bread.
Ed’s brain was desperately trying to marry the awkward, reed-thin child he had last seen with this tawny miracle who stared at him with faint amusement, as if he were a museum curio. ‘Pretty much.’
‘Did you lose your swanky flat?’
‘Any minute now.’
‘Damn. I was going to ask you if I could have my sixteenth-birthday party there.’
‘Well, you saved me the trouble of a refusal.’
‘That’s exactly what Dad said. So are you happy that you didn’t get banged up?’
‘Oh, I think I’m still going to be the family cautionary tale for a while.’
She smiled. ‘Don’t be like naughty Uncle Edward.’
‘Is that how it’s being pitched?’
‘Oh, you know Mum. No moral lesson left unlearnt in this house. “You see how easy it is to end up on the wrong path? He had absolutely everything and now …”’
‘… I’m begging for meals and driving a seven-year-old car.’
‘Nice try. But ours still beats yours by three years.’ She glanced towards the hall, where her mother was speaking to her brother in low tones. ‘Actually, you mustn’t be mean about Mum. You know she spent all of yesterday on the phone working on how to get you into an open prison?’
‘Really?’
‘She was properly stressed about it. I heard her telling someone you wouldn’t last five minutes in Pentonville.’
He felt a pang of something he couldn’t quite identify at his utter ignorance of his sister’s efforts on his behalf. So deep in self-pity had he been that he hadn’t considered how others would be affected if he was sent to prison. ‘She’s probably right.’
Justine pulled a lock of hair into her mouth. She seemed to be enjoying herself. ‘So what are you going to do now you’re a family disgrace with no job and possibly no home?’
‘No idea. Should I take up a drugs habit? Just to round it off?’
‘Ugh. No. Stoners are so boring.’ She peeled her long legs off the chair. ‘And Mum’s busy enough as it is. Although, actually, I should say yes. Because you’ve totally taken the heat off me and Leo. We now have so little to live up to.’
‘Glad to be of help.’
‘Seriously. Nice to see you, though.’ She leant forward and whispered, ‘You’ve actually made Mum’s day. She won’t say so, but she was really, really pleased you came. Like, embarrassingly so. She even cleaned the downstairs loo in case you turned up.’
‘Yeah. Well. I’m going to make sure I do it more often.’
She narrowed her eyes, as if she were trying to work out whether he was being serious, then turned and disappeared back up the stairs.
‘So what’s going on?’ Gemma helped herself to green salad. ‘What happened to the girl at the hospital? Joss? Jess? I thought she’d be there today.’
It was the first home-cooked meal he had eaten in ages, and it was delicious. The others had finished and left, but Ed was on his third helping, having suddenly reacquired the appetite that had disappeared for the last few weeks. His last mouthful had subsequently been a little over-ambitious and he sat there chewing for some time before he could answer. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘You never want to talk about anything. C’mon. Price of a home-cooked meal.’
‘We split up.’
‘What? Why?’ Three glasses of wine had made her garrulous, opinionated. ‘You seemed really happy. Happier than you were with Lara, anyway.’
‘I was.’
‘So? God, you’re an idiot sometimes, Ed. There is a woman who actually seems normal, who seemed to have a handle on you, and you run a mile.’