Jory is giving me a stern look. I think it must be his teacher face. ‘Beth, you’ve just said goodbye to your brother-in-law. Your sister is in hospital. You have been thrown in at the deepest of deep ends. It’s no great surprise that you’re not up to a night at the Black Horse getting thrashed at pool and flirting with Tony the “fit farmer”, who is very married, by the way.’

  ‘Oh, is he very married? That’s annoying, I thought he was only a bit married. I don’t flirt with him, anyway. Not when I’m sober.’

  ‘You are never sober.’

  ‘Well I am now.’ We stand quietly for a while longer. After several weeks of navigating awkward silences with Polly, it’s nice to exist inside a silence that isn’t awkward at all. It’s raining but I have acclimatized to the cold and wind – either that or my legs have gone numb – and suddenly I have an impulse that is not very like me at all. I run back towards my shoes and pull my jeans off.

  Jory looks at me, mouth agape. ‘What are you doing? It’s freezing!’

  ‘Let’s go in!’ I say, pointing at the choppy water.

  ‘But I left our wetsuits in the van because you didn’t seem keen. Shall I go and get them?’ He looks up the beach, now cloaked in a sea mist.

  I have already taken off my coat and I smile as I lift my jumper and vest over my head, shrieking as the rain hits my back. ‘Well, I wasn’t keen earlier but I am keen now. Come on, Mr Clarke, live a little.’

  He shakes his head but strips down to his boxers, placing his hands over himself at the front. ‘It’s a cold day, all right?’ he says and I laugh. I am losing my nerve now I’m faced with the sight of the really rather grey and choppy water. Jory is right, it is freezing. I am grateful for the warmth radiating from him when he moves beside me. We shiver, each of us with our arms wrapped around ourselves.

  I think of all the times Emmy and I have run into the sea here. When we were kids, body boards secured around our wrists, Mum hovering nearby to check we weren’t drowning. When we were teenagers, trying to impress the lifeguards with our brand-new bikinis and highlights. All of our recent trips before the accident were with Ted, who squealed with delight while clinging to his mum’s hand as they jumped the waves together. I usually offered to sit with the bags, grateful for the peace so I could spend time looking at my phone. All those wasted hours of being there but never really joining in.

  ‘On three then?’ I say. Jory’s posture is a picture, his head bowed and his shoulders hunched. He mutters something I can’t hear and I remind him once again that this whole outing was his idea.

  He holds out a hand for us to go together but I am already running and he swears as he follows behind, shouting that going on the count of two is cheating. He is still banging on about wetsuits when I splash water in his direction making him shriek, before I submerge myself, the cold shock of it taking the wind out of my lungs. My eyes are stinging and I am crying and laughing all at the same time.

  This is exactly what I needed. To let something out, to admit to someone that I’m terrified, to release today’s build-up of worry and tears before going back to Emmy’s and telling my mother that no, I don’t know where the stopcock is and no, I haven’t researched what to do if Ted has a seizure, but I am willing to learn all those things if only she’ll let me try. Tonight, when we all return from seeing Emmy, I am going to cook something for Polly and Ted that isn’t pesto pasta and sausage. Prove her wrong.

  As Jory and I wade through the shallows back to the beach, I think about what’s in the cupboard. It might still have to be pesto pasta and sausage after all. One step at a time.

  MAY

  8

  ‘Do you usually iron your uniform, or does your mum or dad do it?’ I suspect I can guess the answer.

  Polly responds from the sofa, without looking up from her phone. ‘Dad did it.’

  ‘Right. Well, I’ll do it for you tonight then.’ I’ll probably have to iron something for my first day back in the office anyway. ‘And you’re sure you’re ready to go back? I can speak to your head of year if you need more time?’

  ‘I’m going back tomorrow,’ Polly says.

  ‘OK. You’re the boss.’ I chew at an already gnawed thumbnail as I take in the state of Emmy and Doug’s once orderly living space. There is mess on every imaginable surface as well as on surfaces I never imagined could get messy. Washing is hanging clumsily over chairs and radiators, half-dry towels somehow smelling worse than before they were washed. There is jam and peanut butter (I hope it’s peanut butter) smeared on one end of the dining table and an untidy stack of letters and magazines balancing precariously at the other end. Rubbish spills out of a bag that I have taken out of the bin but not yet tied up. I don’t know where I’m going to put it as I forgot once again that it was bin day earlier in the week so the big bin outside has three weeks’ instead of two weeks’ worth of rubbish in it already.

  In the living room, a trail of toys spreads outwards from the epicentre of chaos where two wicker baskets have been turned upside down. Ted is wearing the smaller of the two baskets on his head and when he gets up he walks straight into the fireplace. I lurch forward, anticipating a two-second pain delay before the inevitable screaming kicks in, but to my surprise he doesn’t cry at all, instead laughing to himself inside his little basket helmet. As he sits back down on the carpet, he uses his hands as shovels to part the sea of toys. I watch as some of them spread under the sofa where there’s already a half-eaten banana just out of reach. Mum is going to have an absolute field day when she gets here. I’m tempted to just shove all of it out of sight under the sofa and worry about it later, but I don’t want to get mushed banana on everything.

  I decide to do what I always do when I’m overwhelmed by the number of things that need doing: nothing. Mum is just going to have to take us as she finds us today. I can’t imagine she’ll be very happy with how she finds us but I also can’t imagine she’ll be particularly surprised. There has been a lot of tutting and exchanging of glances with Dad recently. On Wednesday, after I texted her to ask if she knew whether Emmy had any tin foil or cling film so I could plate up some of the chilli she’d made us, she phoned in a panic to tell me that reheating rice more than once could kill us. ‘I think you’re being a tad dramatic,’ I told her before googling ‘death by rice poisoning’ and discovering that she wasn’t being entirely bonkers with her cautionary tale on this occasion. I honestly don’t understand how I’m expected to just know all this stuff. How can it be right that I left school having been taught how to spot onomatopoeias in the Anthology and knowing the piano notes for ‘Frère Jacques’, yet at the same time having absolutely no idea that double reheating rice could lead to death. Where were the life skills? A broader and more practical education would have gone some way to solving many of my current failings, I’m sure of it. As would have moving out of my parents’ house and doing my own washing before the age of thirty-one, but we are where we are.

  At least Ted and I are dressed this morning, which is more than can be said for Polly, who is still in her pyjamas with her face glued to her phone, as seems to be her resting state. I’m not one to talk about smartphone dependency, I know. Until recently, I was regularly falling asleep with a claw-hand and strained eyes after one social-media-app refresh led to another, but I’ve had considerably less mindless-scrolling time since the accident. I’m starting to miss it, which is stupid really when all my notifications ever tell me is that someone I went to school with is having a ‘cheeky brunch’ of poached egg and smashed avocado on toast that for reasons unknown they have to photograph and upload immediately with the hashtag #brunchgoals. I can’t stand ‘cheeky’ things that are in no way cheeky. A cheeky pint, a cheeky biscuit, a cheeky little number. Jory once said my fury over the inappropriate use of ‘cheeky’ was an overreaction and now uses it all the time just to wind me up. I feel a pang as I think about all the hours Jory and I used to spend talking about nothing much at all. Perhaps it’s not the mindless scrolling I miss, as such. Just having time to waste.

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea, Pol?’

  She says no without looking at me. I get the same responses on repeat. She’s not hungry, she doesn’t want to talk, there’s nothing I can get her. If I’m being honest with myself, I knew we weren’t exactly close before, but we always got along and enjoyed each other’s company and now, in the absence of her mum and dad, I feel like a gulf has opened up between us. Every time I open my mouth to talk to her about anything deeper than what she wants to eat or drink I hesitate for too long and close it again, worried that whatever I say will only widen the gulf.

  Ted has been playing nicely on the floor, but I can sense him getting cross. He is trying to stuff an army of little figures through one door of his fire engine and becoming increasingly frustrated when they pop out the other door. As he slams the whole engine on the floor, both doors fall off and I watch as a cloud of rage spreads across his face. ‘I can’t do it,’ he says, the last syllable long and drawn out the way it always is when he’s whingeing. He comes over, fire engine in one hand and two little red doors in the other. ‘Aunty Beth fix it,’ he says, knocking my hand, which splashes tea over my T-shirt. I put the cup down and take the vehicle from him, making a mental note to wipe the tea that has pooled on the coffee table. After reattaching the doors, I hand it back to him. He yanks the driver door and it falls straight back off. ‘It broken again.’

  ‘That’s why you need to be gentle. Look, I’ll show you,’ I say. I crouch down to reattach the door once again, then I demonstrate how to open and shut it with less force. He lurches forward and smacks the toy out of my hand before dropping to his knees in despair. I’m not sure I have ever seen anything so ridiculous.

  I take a deep breath. ‘Ted, don’t be silly. I was just showing you how to open the doors without knocking them off. I was trying to help you. Why are you getting cross?’

  ‘Mine!’ He is screaming in my face suddenly, a high-pitched scream that feels as though it is vibrating through my skull. His ability to go from nought to sixty on the anger scale in a matter of seconds is something I’m still not used to. How can such a small person be so livid, and so loud? His screaming ignites my already shortened fuse.

  ‘Well, you can sort the bloody doors out yourself then!’ I regret the way it comes out the moment it does.

  ‘Wow, there’s no need to swear at him.’ Polly is scowling at me from the sofa. It’s good of her to wait until the shouty moment to get involved.

  ‘I didn’t swear at him.’ I’m not convinced ‘bloody’ is even a swear word these days and I was directing my rage at the toy and its stupid doors, not Ted. Maybe it was a bit at Ted.

  He is crying, clutching the fire engine and its doors to his chest. This is what toddlers do. They shout and scream and make you cross, then within seconds do a sad pouty face, sometimes with a thumb in the mouth for extra effect, which makes you feel like a complete monster for losing your cool.

  I hold my hands up. ‘You’re right, there is no need for it. I am sorry. Both of you. Maybe there’s a way of attaching the doors more permanently. I’ll get Grandad Jim on the case. For now, shall we find you something else to play with?’ I gesture at the toys all over the floor. Ted trundles over and picks up another toy with unreliable doors. ‘Polly, do you think you could go and get dressed please? Your nan and grandad will be here any minute.’

  ‘So …?’ she says. Her tone is one of pure teenage annoyance, with a face to match. She scrunches up her nose as though I’ve just walked shit through the living room.

  ‘So it’s nearly lunchtime and you’re still in your pyjamas. Please, just freshen up a bit.’ The last bit is definitely pleading and she knows it. I feel pathetic.

  ‘You’re only worried about me “freshening up” because if I don’t, it looks bad on you. Why you care about me being in pyjamas I have no idea – look at the state of the place, and look at the state of you.’ She leans backwards to look out of the window. ‘It’s too late now, anyway.’ It’s only then that I process what she’s said about the state of me and I look down at my tea-splashed top and joggers, trying not to take it personally, even though it was clearly intended to be personal.

  Mum’s usual rat-a-tat-tat on the door is closely followed by her key in the lock. Her rat-a-tat-tats are always more an announcement of her arrival than a request to come in. She would come in anyway. Ted runs out to greet her. I hope he doesn’t tell her that his aunty Beth said ‘bloody’.

  ‘Good morning, darlings.’ Mum greets Polly and Ted with cuddles. I get a frown instead of a cuddle. ‘What’s that dreadful smell?’

  ‘It’s the bin. Don’t worry, I was just about to sort it.’

  Dad follows Mum in, carrying a bag of what I’m assuming is our lunch. He kisses me on the cheek. ‘How are you, love?’ I can see him scanning the chaos over my shoulder. Mum has tied the top of the bin bag and is chucking it out the back door. She has been here thirty seconds.

  ‘I’ll do that in a minute, Mum. Tea? Coffee?’ I force a smile.

  ‘A tea would be lovely,’ she says, her head under the sink where she pulls out a roll of bin bags. ‘It could do with a little bleach or an anti-bac wipe, that bin.’

  ‘I said I’ll do it in a minute.’ I’m talking to myself, clearly, as she puts on a pair of rubber gloves.

  ‘I know you will. I’m just mentioning that bins get a bit stinky if you don’t give them a wipe down every now and again.’

  ‘Stinky bins, got it,’ I say. ‘Polly was just off to get changed, weren’t you, Pol?’ Polly glares at me but finally removes herself from the sofa.

  There are no clean mugs in the cupboard and I haven’t put the dishwasher on yet so I grab two dirty mugs from the worktop and dunk them in the sink. Mum has stopped anti-bac-ing the bin for a moment and is looking at me with concern.

  ‘I was going to sort the dishes and everything in a minute,’ I say, without meeting her eye. ‘We’ve had a bit of a lazy morning.’

  ‘I can see that,’ she says. There’s an awkward silence as I strain two teabags with a spoon then Mum claps her hands together and says, ‘Right. I’ll put the lunch on. I’ve cooked most of it already so it should be ready for two-ish, which gives us a chance to spruce the place up a bit after our cuppa.’

  ‘Brillo,’ I say, putting their teas on the dining table next to mine before giving her a sarcastic double thumbs up.

  Dad puts what looks like a crumble in the fridge before putting an arm around me. He is deliberately ignoring the state of the house, which makes me feel as though he is in my corner. ‘How are you, love? All set for work tomorrow?’

  I lean my head on his shoulder. ‘Yeah. I’m fine.’

  ‘Is that fine or fine fine? When your mother says she’s fine I know things are far from fine.’ He looks over at Mum, but she can’t hear him because she’s got the hoover on and is grumbling about the tiny pieces of toys she can see in the cylinder. She stares closer at the mass of hair and fluff. ‘It looks like tiny shards of glass in there. Glass! Please tell me you didn’t use this to clear up something you broke?’ Something I broke. Because it’s always my fault.

  With Dad’s eyes on me, I feel suddenly as though I might cry. I’m not fine but I don’t want to tell him I’m not fine because it might tip me over the crying edge. Crying always leaves me feeling drained, as though I could sleep for a week, and I definitely can’t sleep for a week. I can barely sleep for a night. Just after midnight last night Ted had a nightmare. Keep the giraffe out! he kept repeating, over and over as I wiped the sweat from his brow, with absolutely no idea what he was going on about. It was only after an hour of him whimpering about closing all the doors that I realized he had misunderstood me when I had mentioned keeping the draught out. If I’m this tired today, I have no idea how I’m going to function tomorrow.

  Polly returns downstairs wearing what is essentially a cleaner version of what she’s just changed out of. Emmy sent me a video not long before the accident of Polly and two friends doing a TikTok dance in crop tops and tracksuit bottoms, all of them looking like Sporty Spice just with bigger eyebrows. Polly didn’t even know who Mel C was when I mentioned it, making me feel about ninety-seven.

  She is hovering in front of me and her grandad. ‘Aunty Beth, can I have a sleepover at Rosie’s next Friday?’

  I narrow my eyes. Though it’s possible she’s received this invite from Rosie in the five minutes she’s been upstairs, I suspect she was deliberately waiting until her nan and grandad got here before asking. Maybe this is part of my probation, another test. What is the protocol for teenagers and sleepovers? At fourteen, I imagine it’s fine, but in the absence of a taking-on-two-kids induction pack, I can’t check that my answer is right.

  ‘Oh. I don’t know.’

  ‘Michaela’s going. And Sam. Samantha, obviously,’ she laughs. Her face is lit up, which immediately makes me want to say yes to whatever she’s asking. I wonder if she knows the happy face is so much more effective than the angry silence.

  ‘Right, well, if you let me have a number for Rosie’s mum or dad, I’ll have a quick word. I can’t see why it would be a problem though.’

  She punches the air in triumph. ‘Can you text rather than phone her mum though? Like, don’t make it a big deal? It’s just a sleepover.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’m just, like, trying to be responsible by checking in with another adult.’ I am saying all this for Mum’s benefit. The responsible tone does not come naturally to me and I wonder if it’s something you have to stand in front of a mirror to practise.

  Polly is still querying my mode of contact. ‘Can you be responsible by text though? I’ve just WhatsApp-ed you Rosie’s mum’s mobile number. She’s called Suzy. Can you do it today?’