The Family Upstairs(7)

‘What was my name?’ she says. ‘Did anyone know?’

‘Yes,’ says Mr Royle. ‘Your name was written on the note that your parents left behind. It was Serenity.’

‘Serenity?’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Pretty name. I think. If a little … bohemian?’

Suddenly she feels claustrophobic. She wants to run dramatically from the room, but it is not her way to be dramatic.

Instead she says, ‘Can we see the garden now, please? I could do with some fresh air.’





5


Lucy turns off her phone. She needs to keep the charge in case Samia tries to get in touch. She turns to Marco, who is looking at her curiously.

‘What?’ she says.

‘What was that message? On your phone?’

‘What message?’

‘I saw it. Just now. It said The baby is twenty-five. What does that mean?’

‘It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘It must mean something.’

‘It doesn’t. It’s just a friend’s baby. Just a reminder that they turned twenty-five. I must send a card.’

‘What friend?’

‘A friend in England.’

‘But you haven’t got any friends in England.’

‘Of course I have friends in England. I was brought up in England.’

‘Well, what’s her name?’

‘Whose name?’

Marco roars with frustration. ‘Your friend’s name, of course.’

‘What does it matter?’ she replies sharply.

‘It matters because you’re my mum and I want to know stuff about you. I like, literally, don’t know anything about you.’

‘That’s ridiculous. You know loads about me.’

He gazes at her wide-eyed and stupefied. ‘Like what? I mean, I know your parents died when you were a baby. I know you grew up in London with your aunt and that she brought you to France and taught you to play the fiddle and died when you were eighteen. So I know, like, the story of you. But I don’t know the details. Like where you went to school or who your friends were and what you did at the weekends or funny things that happened or anything normal.’

‘It’s complicated,’ she says.

‘I know it’s complicated,’ he says. ‘But I’m twelve years old now and you can’t treat me like a little baby any more. You have to tell me things.’

Lucy stares at her son. He’s right. He’s twelve and he is not interested in fairy stories any more. He knows there’s more to life than five major events, that life is made up of all the moments in between.

She sighs. ‘I can’t,’ she says. ‘Not yet.’

‘Then when?’

‘Soon,’ she says. ‘If we ever get to London, I’ll tell you everything.’

‘Are we going?’

She sighs and pulls her hair away from her hairline. ‘I just don’t know. I’ve got no money. You and Stella don’t have passports. The dog. It’s all just …’

‘Dad,’ says Marco, cutting her off. ‘Call Dad.’

‘No way.’

‘We can meet somewhere public. He wouldn’t try anything then.’

‘Marco. We don’t even know where your father is.’

There is a strange silence. She can sense her son fidgeting edgily, burying his face into the dog’s fur again.

‘I do.’

She turns again, sharply, to look at him.

He closes his eyes, then opens them again. ‘He collected me from school.’

‘When!’

Marco shrugs. ‘A couple of times. Towards the end of term.’

‘And you didn’t tell me?’

‘He told me not to.’

‘Fuck, Marco. Fuck.’ She punches the ground with her fists. ‘What happened? Where did he take you?’

‘Nowhere. Just sort of walked with me.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘What did he say? What is he doing?’

‘Nothing. Just on holiday. With his wife.’

‘And where is he now?’

‘Still here. He’s here for the whole summer. In the house.’

‘The house?’

‘Yes.’

‘God, Marco! Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘Because I knew you’d go mental.’

‘I’m not going mental. Look at me. Totally not mental. Totally just sitting here on the hard, wet ground under a flyover with nowhere to sleep while your father is a mile up the road living in the lap of luxury. Why would I go mental?’

‘Sor-ry.’ He tuts. ‘You said you never wanted to see him again.’

‘That was when I wasn’t sleeping under a motorway.’

‘So you do want to see him again?’

‘I don’t want to see him. But I need a way out of this mess. And he’s the only option. At the very least he can pay to get my fiddle back.’

‘Oh, yeah, cos then we’ll be really rich, won’t we?’

Lucy clenches her hands into fists. Her son always puts the unpalatable bottom line into words, then slaps her round the face with it.