Who was strong enough for that?

I wasn’t sleeping properly again. So I slept through my alarm and, despite tearing my way up the motorway, arrived late for Granddad’s birthday. In celebration of his eighty years, Dad had brought out the foldaway gazebo we had used for Thomas’s christening, which flapped, mossy and listless, at the end of the garden where, through the open door that led to the back alley, a succession of neighbours popped in and out, bringing cake or good wishes. Granddad sat in the middle of it all on a plastic garden chair, nodding at people he no longer recognized, only occasionally gazing longingly towards his folded copy of the Racing Post.

‘So this promotion,’ Treena was on tea-duty, pouring from an oversized pot and handing out cups, ‘what exactly does it mean?’

‘Well, I get a title. I balance the till at the end of every shift and I get to hold a set of keys.’ This is a serious responsibility, Louisa, Richard Percival had said, bestowing them with as much gravitas and pomposity as if he were handing me the Holy Grail. Use them wisely. He actually said those words. Use them wisely. I wanted to say, What else am I going to do with a set of bar keys? Plough a field?

‘Money?’ She handed me a cup and I sipped at it.

‘A pound an hour extra.’

‘Mm.’ She was unimpressed.

‘And I don’t have to wear the uniform any more.’

She scrutinized the Charlie’s Angels jumpsuit I had put on that morning in honour of the occasion. ‘Well, I guess that’s something.’ She pointed Mrs Laslow towards the sandwiches.

What else could I say? It was a job. Progress of sorts. I didn’t tell her about the days when it felt like a peculiar form of torture to work somewhere where I was forced to watch each plane taxi on the runway, gather its energy like a great bird, then launch itself into the sky. I didn’t tell her how putting on that green polo shirt each day made me feel somehow as if I had lost something.

‘Mum says you’ve got a boyfriend.’

‘He’s not really my boyfriend.’

‘She said that as well. What is it, then? You just bump uglies once in a while?’

‘No. We’re good friends –’

‘So he’s a pig.’

‘He’s not a pig. He’s gorgeous.’

‘But crap in the sack.’

‘He’s wonderful. Not that it’s any of your business. And smart, before you –’

‘Then he’s married.’

‘He is not married. Jesus, Treen. Will you just let me explain? I like him, but I’m not sure I want to get involved just yet.’

‘Because of the long queue of other handsome, employed single sexy men waiting to snap you up?’

I glared at her.

‘I’m just saying. Gift horses and all that.’

‘When do you get your exam results?’

‘Don’t change the subject.’ She sighed and opened a new carton of milk. ‘Couple of weeks.’

‘What’s wrong? You’re going to get top marks. You know you will.’

‘But what’s the difference? I’m stuck.’

I frowned.

‘There are no jobs in Stortfold. But I can’t afford the rent in London, not with childcare for Thom on top. And nobody gets top dollar when they’re first starting out, even with top marks.’

She poured another cup of tea. I wanted to protest, to say it wasn’t so, but I knew only too well how tough the job market was. ‘So what will you do?’

‘Stay here for now, I suppose. Commute, maybe. Hope that Mum’s feminist metamorphosis won’t stop her picking Thom up from school.’ She raised a small smile that wasn’t a smile at all.

I had never seen my sister down. Even if she felt it, she ploughed on, like an automaton, a firm advocate of the ‘short walk and snap out of it’ school of depression. I was trying to work out what to say when there was a sudden commotion on the food table. We looked up to see Mum and Dad facing off over a chocolate cake. They were talking in the lowered, sibilant voices of people who did not want others to know they were arguing, but not enough to stop arguing.

‘Mum? Dad? Everything okay?’ I walked over.

Dad pointed at the table. ‘It’s not a homemade cake.’

‘What?’

‘The cake. It’s not homemade. Look at it.’

I looked at it – a large, lavishly iced chocolate cake, decorated with chocolate buttons between the candles.

Mum shook her head in exasperation. ‘I had an essay to write.’

‘An essay. You’re not at school! You always do a homemade cake for Granddad.’

‘It’s a nice cake. It’s from Waitrose. Daddy doesn’t mind that it’s not homemade.’

‘Yes, he does. He’s your father. You do mind, don’t you, Granddad?’

Granddad looked from one to the other, and gave a tiny shake of his head. Around us, the conversation stuttered to a halt. Our neighbours eyed each other nervously. Bernard and Josie Clark never argued.

‘He’s just saying that because he doesn’t want to hurt your feelings.’ Dad harrumphed.

‘If his feelings aren’t hurt, Bernard, why on earth should yours be? It’s a chocolate cake. It’s not like I ignored his whole birthday.’