Chapter Seven

      ‘Right, how do you like your eggs, Robyn?’

      The atmosphere at the breakfast table at Dad’s the next day was frosty, to say the least. Denise was the martyred waitress, wafting dramatically in and out of the beaded curtain separating the dining room from the kitchen (I swear she only had it fitted so Dad could actually hear her go in and out of there). Dad was doing what he always did when there was an atmosphere: hiding behind his newspaper.

      I watched him, reading the sports pages, picking his nose, unable to even believe myself, that I could possibly feel this bad. I’m not a big drinker, normally. I don’t like the feeling of being out of control. This wasn’t always the case. At university, I was that girl with traffic cones in my room, that girl to get in any old minicab. I once held up the traffic on Blackfriars Bridge when drunk (and spent a night in a police cell for the privilege). But there’s only so long you can carry on like that before you realize it’s not fair to have everyone worry constantly about you, even if you’re not worrying about yourself. Now, I never drink so much I’m out of control. Last night, I did. Maybe I felt safe? Still, I wasn’t going to let Denise have the satisfaction of knowing that.

      I sat motionless at the dining table, my throbbing head slowly catching up with the pleasant dull ache between my thighs. If I sort of pursed my lips and closed my eyes, I could still smell Joe on my top lip: his muskiness, Jack Daniel’s. When Denise came marching back from the kitchen, I felt like she’d caught me in the act.

      She plonked a cup of tea down in front of me.

      ‘You look like you need that,’ she said. The slogan on it said: DO YOU TAKE ME FOR A MUG? I chose not to take this personally. Then she rattled through the beaded curtain, to make my poached eggs. I might have helped, but feared that, if I moved, I’d most definitely be sick.

      From behind his newspaper, Dad tutted. ‘How come madam here gets to choose what type of eggs she gets? It’s not a bloody hotel, you know …’

      ‘Really?’ said Denise from the kitchen. ‘You could have fooled me.’

      I apologized for waking people up; it’s much easier that way. Apparently, I’d come in at after 3 a.m., then set the smoke alarm off by making a bacon sandwich. Denise said my dress was left in a heap by the toilet, still in the shape that I’d stepped out of it (and I could go and pick it up when I was ready, too).

      ‘Did you get back to sleep, Denny, love?’ Dad said.

      ‘No, but it’s fine,’ she said. (Fine, fine, fine.) ‘I’ll have a nap later, if I get the chance.’

      Denise was huffing and puffing and clattering in the kitchen. I was taking slow, tentative slurps of tea, looking through the French doors at the dull grey sky and the grey concrete. When Mum was alive, that garden was a mass of wild flowers and colour; six months after Denise moved in (which was only two after Mum died, Christmas ’96, just to add insult to injury), she had it paved over – apparently because she had a ‘bad back and found it hard to garden’. Maybe it was this which angered me – this feeling I can’t seem to shake, that Dad has let Denise pave over him, us. Maybe it was the thought that if Mum could see those grey slabs, she’d be so disappointed, or that last night had ignited something in me, set some kind of change in motion. Whatever it was, I felt daring. I was not leaving this house without the ashes.

      ‘Right, so,’ I announced suddenly, pressing my palms on the table for extra emphasis. From behind his newspaper, I saw Dad’s eyelids flicker with alarm. ‘Where are Mum’s ashes? ’Cause I’m not going home without them.’

      Dad coughed and put his paper down. Denise came out, carrying my eggs, a miasma of Elnett and frying fat, the tops of her jeans swish-swishing. She stopped when she got to the table, holding the plate in her hands.

      ‘Well, Bruce, have you told her?’ She’d overdrawn one of her brows with eye pencil, so it went too far towards her temple. It made her look even more mad than usual.

      ‘Told me what?’

      ‘He can’t find them, Robyn,’ she said, putting my plate down.

      I felt my throat constrict with panic.

      ‘What do you mean, you can’t find them?’ I said, my voice wobbling. ‘Dad, are you saying that you have actually lost Mum?’

      ‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous,’ he said.

      ‘Well, where are they, then? Denise, any ideas?’

      I didn’t hate Denise but I didn’t trust her either. Mum was a hard act to follow and she knew it. I always got the sense with her that she’d never got over one vital fact: Dad had never wanted to end it with Mum; it ended because she died. It would have been easier for Denise if it had been divorce.

      ‘Because I don’t mean to be rude, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but I know you’ve sometimes found it difficult, looking at …’ Dad was boring holes into me with his eyes. I stopped just in time. ‘Just, maybe you moved them, that’s all?’

      The realization that, yes, I was accusing her of hiding my mother’s ashes, made Denise’s throat flush red – was that anger, or guilt? ‘Don’t look at me,’ she said. ‘I have polished that urn every single day. I do it at the same time as I do my cats and trophies.’

      That was nice, I thought, ranking all that remained of my mother with her badminton trophies and ceramic cats. And, anyway, I didn’t believe her.

      ‘Also, if you three girls can’t look after your mother’s ashes yourselves, well …’ She flounced off in the direction of the kitchen again. ‘I’ve done my bit.’

      ‘Denise, excuse me!’

      Dad slammed his newspaper shut. It made me jump. ‘That is enough, Robyn, thank you. Stop talking about the ashes in front of Denise. It’s bad manners.’

      Bad manners? My mum’s memory was now a bad manner?

      ‘And in front of your dad,’ added Denise. ‘It only upsets him.’

      This was unbelievable.

      ‘Look, I’m not saying anyone’s