‘She sounded like a crazy person, I couldn’t understand a word she said,’ Stan would say afterwards, defensively, guiltily. Joy hadn’t understood a word either, but she didn’t care, she didn’t try to make sense of it, she just enjoyed watching Amy’s animated face as she talked her nonsense and enjoyed the fact that she was happy for a change.
But Amy was doing well right now. There hadn’t been any ‘troubles’ for a long time. She was ‘in a good place’， as people said. Joy liked the sound of this new counsellor. Roger. Joy had been to school with a nice boy called Roger.
Anyway, the truth was that Joy could never accurately predict what would upset Amy. Joy had often got herself tied up in knots over some issue she thought might set off Amy, and been completely wrong. The trick with Amy was to go along for the ride with her. Let her talk crazy-fast when she was happy. Let her be sad when she was sad, and resist the urge to list all the reasons why she should not be sad.
‘It will be fine, Savannah,’ said Joy. ‘The more brownies the better!’
The risk of upsetting Stan outweighed the risk of upsetting Amy. The risk of upsetting Stan had always outweighed the risk of upsetting any of the children.
Nearly always.
A hot sour feeling blossomed across her chest like heartburn or a heart attack; at her age either was always a possibility, but she ignored it and sat down at the table to wait for her breakfast to be put in front of her. She resolutely turned her head away from her motherin-law’s china cats. Sometimes they seemed to watch her, the way her motherin-law had once watched her, with pure malice.
She placed her hand lightly on Stan’s forearm and said, ‘Maybe change into that blue shirt, darling. The one Amy gave you for Christmas.’
‘It’s too tight across the back,’ said Stan.
‘I know,’ said Joy. ‘But wear it anyway.’
chapter twenty-one
Now
‘Chocolate brownie?’ asked Joy Delaney’s oldest daughter, with such anxious, fervent hope as she held out the plate that Christina and Ethan each took one.
‘They’re straight out of the oven,’ said Amy Delaney.
Christina and Ethan sat side by side on a couch in the front room of Amy’s inner-city terrace, which she apparently shared with three flatmates. Amy sat opposite them, on the very edge of an armchair so ripped it looked like someone had taken to it with a knife. It seemed like a fairly typical share house. The room they were in was filled with mismatched furniture and smelled faintly of cannabis and garlic. Amy was a head taller than both Christina and Ethan, and she wore flowing harem pants that looked like pyjamas and a white singlet top inscribed with the words This is how I roll. She’d tied back her blue-dyed hair for the press conference, but this morning it was dripping wet as if she’d just got out of the shower.
You wouldn’t think she’d grown up in that nice family home with the flowerbeds and garden gnomes, except for the fussy way she hosted them, insisting that she make them cups of tea and bringing out brownies and side plates and napkins.
Christina bit down on the brownie, which was sweet and nutty and gave her an instant sugar rush. She was highly susceptible to sugar highs. Also sugar lows. Nico used it to his advantage. When he proposed he gave her a diamond ring and a Caramello Koala.
The coffee table was too far away to reach the cups of tea that Amy had made them.
‘Oh, sorry!’ said Amy, noticing, and she got on her knees and tried to shove the coffee table closer to them. The tea sloshed onto the table.
Amy swore under her breath, and looked close to tears.
‘It’s okay, I’ve got it,’ said Ethan soothingly, and he got to his feet and tugged the table closer in one smooth move.
‘Thank you!’ Amy fidgeted with the fabric of her pants. ‘This room isn’t very well set up for guests. Anyway. Thank you for coming to me. That was nice of you. I don’t know if I can give you any more information than I already have. I mean, I’m not really that worried. I’m sure Mum is fine. She told us she was going off-grid. When she comes home she’ll be so cross with us for wasting your time like this! She’ll be so embarrassed. I feel kind of embarrassed, to be honest.’
Her words said one thing but her body language said something else entirely.
‘I’m curious. If you’re so sure your mother is fine,’ Christina asked the same question she’d asked Amy’s brother, ‘then why report her missing?’
‘Well, I guess just in case she isn’t fine.’ Amy’s gaze slid all over the place. She clutched her hands together as if to stop them escaping. Christina ran a practised eye over her for signs of drug use and didn’t find any physical signs except for her skittishness and the shadows under her eyes, which could easily be attributed to her concern for her mother.