‘This is really not going to make anything better.’

‘For you, maybe. Look, Nicky, I know you have very mixed feelings about your dad right now, and I don’t blame you. I know it’s been a very confusing time –’

‘I’m not confused.’

‘Tanzie is at rock bottom. She needs something to give her a lift. And Marty is not that far away.’ She put out a hand and touched his arm. ‘Look, if you really don’t want to see him when we get there you can just stay in the car, okay? … I’m sorry,’ she said, when he didn’t say anything. ‘To be honest, I’m not exactly desperate to see him either. But we do have to do this.’

What could he tell her? What could he tell her that she would believe? And he supposed there was five per cent of him that still wondered if he was the one who was wrong.

Jess turned to Mr Nicholls, who had been leaning against his car watching silently. ‘Please. Will you give us a lift to Marty’s? His mum’s, I mean. I’m sorry. I know you’ve probably had enough of us and we’ve been a complete pain, but … but I haven’t got anyone else to ask. Tanzie … she needs her dad. Whatever I – we – think of him, she needs to see her dad. It’s only a couple of hours from here.’

He looked at her.

‘Okay, maybe more if we have to go slowly. But please – I need to turn this round. I really need to turn this round.’

Mr Nicholls stepped to one side and opened the passenger door. He stooped a little so that he could smile at Tanzie. ‘Let’s go.’

They all looked relieved. But it was a bad idea. A really bad idea. If only they’d asked him about the wallpaper Nicky could have told them why.

22.

Jess

The last time Jess had seen Maria Costanza was the day she had delivered Marty to her in Liam’s brother’s van. Marty had spent the last hundred miles to Glasgow asleep under a duvet, and as Jess stood in her immaculate front room and tried to explain her son’s breakdown she had looked at her as if Jess had personally tried to kill him.

Maria Costanza had never liked her. She’d thought her son deserved better than a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl with a home-dye and glittery nails, and nothing Jess had ever done since had changed her fundamental low opinion of her. She thought what Jess did with the house was peculiar. She thought the fact that Jess made most of the children’s clothes herself was wilfully eccentric. It never occurred to her to ask why she made their clothes, or why they couldn’t afford to pay someone else to decorate. Or why when the overflow blocked it was Jess who ended up under the sink wrestling with the U-bend.

She had tried. She really had. She was polite, and didn’t swear, or pick at bits of herself in public. She was faithful to Marty. She produced the world’s most amazing baby, and kept her clean, fed and cheerful. It took Jess about five years to grasp that it wasn’t her. Maria Costanza was just one of life’s lemon-suckers. Jess wasn’t sure she had ever seen a smile break spontaneously over her face, unless it was to report some piece of news about one of her friends or neighbours: a slashed tyre or a terminal illness, maybe.

She had tried to ring her twice, on Mr Nicholls’s phone, but got no answer.

‘Granny’s probably still at work,’ she told Tanzie, ringing off. ‘Or perhaps they’ve gone to see the new baby.’

‘You still want me to head over there?’ Mr Nicholls glanced at her.

‘Please. I’m sure they’ll be home by the time we get there. She never goes out in the evening.’

Nicky’s eyes met hers in the mirror and slid away. Jess didn’t blame him for being negative. If Maria Costanza’s reaction to Tanzie had been lukewarm, her discovery that she had a grandson she hadn’t even known about was met with the same enthusiasm as if they had announced a family case of scabies. Jess couldn’t tell if she was offended that he had existed for so long without her knowledge, or whether her inability to explain him without referring to (a) illegitimacy and (b) that her son had been involved with an addict meant that she just found it easier to ignore him altogether. It was one of the reasons why, when Marty had announced, six months after he’d left, that he was feeling a bit better so they should all come up and stay, it had been quite easy to say no on the grounds of cost.

‘You looking forward to seeing Daddy, Tanze?’ Jess turned in her seat. Tanzie was leaning against Norman, her face solemn and exhausted. Her eyes slid to Jess’s and she gave the smallest of nods.

‘It will be great to see him. And Granny,’ Jess said brightly. ‘I’m not sure why we didn’t think of it sooner.’

It was as she went to ring Marty that she realized he’d been on voicemail for as long as she could remember. They only ever spoke via Skype or on his mobile, which was rarely switched on. That, she thought, was going to change. A lot of things were going to change.

They drove in silence. Tanzie dozed, resting against the dog. Nicky sat and watched the darkening sky in silence. She didn’t feel like putting music on. She didn’t dare let the children see how she felt about what had happened in Aberdeen. She couldn’t let herself think about it. One thing at a time, she told herself. Just get Tanzie back on track. And then I’ll work out what to do next.

‘You okay?’

‘Fine.’ She could see he didn’t believe her. ‘She’ll feel better once she sees her dad. I know it.’