Page 5

FOUR

The Parker family sat around their new table, in their new kitchen, in their new house. Lottie was determined that this was to be a fresh start to family life. She promised herself that she was going to be a better mother. Fingers crossed. But sitting down with her children was proving to be strained and uncomfortable. Maybe she had let things get out of hand. Or maybe they had all just become too used to living with their gran. She wasn’t sure what to do.

Sean was sitting with a sullen look pasted on his face. Chloe pushed her food around the plate with her fork, while Katie shovelled mashed potatoes into one-year-old Louis’ mouth. This should be a happy time, Lottie thought, but there was still something missing. She glanced up at the wall, devoid of paintings and photographs. The framed wedding photo, faded to sepia, that had always hung in the kitchen had perished in the fire, along with most of the other physical reminders of her dead husband. Boyd was right. She had to move on. But how was she to fill the void in her heart? Boyd had tried, but invariably she’d spurned him. Was that why there was still a corner of emptiness lodged there?

‘Mam? I asked you a question.’ Chloe pushed her plate to the centre of the table.

‘Sorry. I was miles away.’ Lottie shook her reminiscences out of her head and concentrated on her daughter.

‘As usual.’ Chloe kicked back her chair and stood.

‘What did you say?’

‘Oh, whatever.’

‘Chloe! I’m listening now.’

‘Can you babysit Louis for Katie at the weekend. We want to go to out.’

‘Where is out?’

‘Jomo’s. Please.’

‘The nightclub?’

‘Yeah.’ Chloe rolled her eyes as if her mother were a dinosaur.

‘You’re not old enough.’ Lottie wasn’t in the mood for a row. This was their first night in their new home. They should be happy. Shouldn’t they? But she knew that while the four walls surrounding them might be different, inside they all remained the same.

Chloe stood in the doorway, her fingers turning white. ‘Why do you continue to treat me like I’m twelve? I’ll be eighteen next month. Life is too short to worry about what age you have to be to get into a nightclub. Come on. Let me live.’

‘You have school. Exams. Study. You’re too young.’

‘You didn’t answer the question though,’ Katie piped up.

Damn, she’d forgotten the question. ‘What was it again?’

‘Can you babysit?’

Lottie glanced over at Louis and winked at him. Immediately the baby opened his mouth in a smile full of mashed potatoes. She sighed. ‘Let me see how work is set and I’ll let you know.’

‘They get to go everywhere,’ Sean said sulkily. ‘And I’m stuck here with you and a baby. Such a gross life.’

‘Sean?’ Lottie was speaking to air as her son left the kitchen.

‘Don’t mind him,’ Chloe said. ‘Teenage problems.’

‘And what are you? You’re still a teenager too.’

‘But I’m mature.’ Chloe straightened her back and followed her brother.

Katie dabbed at Louis’ mouth with a wet wipe and handed him over to Lottie. ‘Can you change him, Mam? I’ll go and talk to Sean.’

Alone with her grandson, Lottie eyed the mess on the table and the counter full of saucepans and dishes. She suddenly missed living at her mother’s. She’d never thought she’d feel that emotion. Not after everything that had happened in the last year.

‘What are we going to do with the lot of them?’ she asked Louis.

She was rewarded with a burp and a dirty nappy.