‘Or he might have fallen in love with me and whisked me off on an exciting world tour!’
‘Well,’ said Sofia. ‘I am very glad that isn’t happening. Because … it looks like you’re doing very well with the shop.’
Carmen looked up. Was Sofia trying to be a goody-two-shoes or did she mean it? As she did so, it struck her how utterly exhausted Sofia looked. Even with money and help … it couldn’t be easy. She put on the kettle to make her some tea.
‘Did he take your number?’
‘He did not,’ said Carmen. ‘Which pretty much settles it for the falling madly in love with me thing … ’
‘You could message him! He’s on Instagram.’
‘I don’t want to! He’s weird.’
‘But very handsome and rich.’
‘He has teeth filed to tiny points,’ said Carmen. ‘And anyway, his publicist has my number if he wanted it, which he doesn’t.’
She couldn’t help glancing at her phone regardless. Sofia saw that and hid a smile. There was nothing of course.
Jack charged in.
‘Mummy! Mummy! They said it’s going to snow!’
‘Who said that, Jacky?’
‘Newsround.’
‘There’s still Newsround?’ said Carmen. ‘Cor. Most boring show ever.’
‘No,’ said Pippa. ‘It tells you what’s happening in the world. We watch it at school.’
‘You get it at school?’
They all nodded.
‘You get telly at school? How is that fair?’
‘Supper doesn’t smell very NUTRITIOUS,’ countered Pippa.
‘Well, that’s because it’s tea, not supper,’ said Carmen. Phoebe entered the kitchen, trailing as always, and scowling as always.
‘It’s pie,’ said Carmen. ‘You’ll like it, won’t you, Phoebs?’
Phoebe looked upset although Carmen had no idea why.
‘I don’t think so,’ she sniffed.
‘Good, good.’
‘Bring some here,’ said Sofia. ‘I am starved.’
‘BUT IS IT GOING TO SNOW?’ said Jack loudly. Sometimes being the only boy in the house was quite tricky.
‘I don’t know, darling,’ said his mother, tousling his hair and glancing out the back window, but it was pitch-black, only the lights of other houses dimly visible above the back wall.
‘Oh, Mr McCredie thinks it is,’ said Carmen. ‘He said tonight will be bad and tomorrow will be beyond imagining.’
Phoebe frowned.
‘I can imagine a lot of things.’
‘Well, imagine lots of snow and it might happen!’
It wasn’t the boom that woke Carmen up. It was a pair of feet more or less in her face in the narrow bed.
‘WHAAA—？’ she said, starting awake in a panic, then realising through her foggy brain that if it was a murderous rapist, they were very much going about it in completely the wrong way. She had been on the train again, the tiny dusty train, the woman in her hat, the tunnel coming closer, closer …
She glanced at the toes wriggling frantically two centimetres from her nose.
‘Phoebe? Is that you?’
Under the blankets came a tiny eep.