Amy put the flute down beside her, and laid her hands flat on the duvet. She looked directly at Chrissie.
‘Because I rang him once.’
‘And why did you do that?’
Amy thought for a moment. She was conscious of a dangerous energy beginning to surge up inside her, an energy compounded of apprehension at Chrissie’s imminent anger and distress, and excitement at defending her own position.
She said slowly, ‘It was an impulse.’
‘Inspired by what?’
‘Newcastle,’ Amy said truthful y.
‘ Newcastle?’
‘I Googled it.’ She got off the bed and reached up to slide the envelope from behind the Duffy poster. ‘And I also found this.’
Chrissie took the envelope and opened it. Amy watched her. Chrissie glanced at the photograph, and then held it and the envelope out to Amy.
‘Please put that away.’
‘It’s Dad!’ Amy said.
‘I know it’s Dad.’
‘But—’
‘Look,’ Chrissie said, suddenly agitated. ‘Look. I know he came from Newcastle. I know he was born on North Tyneside. I know his parents struggled for money and his mother adored him. I know al that. But I can’t bear to know it. After everything that’s happened, after everything he’s done and we’ve discovered, al his life in the North, al his loyalties in the North just seem like a betrayal to me. Perhaps you can’t feel it because he never let you down, but, Amy, having you talk to that man, having you making plans with that man, and without tel ing me, just makes me feel worse, it makes me feel that I can’t trust you, that you’re taking sides with people whose existence has made my life so difficult for so long and stopped me having what I real y wanted, what I should have had, I should, I should.’
Amy sat down on the edge of the bed and held the photograph between her hands.
‘I wasn’t making plans.’
‘But you were, about the piano, Tamsin—’
‘Tamsin answered my phone,’ Amy said. ‘I was in the loo, and she answered my phone.’
Chrissie began to wind her pearls in and out of her fingers.
‘Did you hear a word I’ve just said?’
Amy nodded.
‘Do you have any idea of what I’ve been through?’
Amy looked up.
‘Of course.’
‘Then how can you? How can you talk to that man about the piano behind my back?’
‘He’s not that man,’ Amy said, ‘he’s Dad’s son. He’s our half-brother.’
‘Don’t you care at all?’
‘Of course.’
‘You said that already.’
‘Mum,’ Amy said, suddenly al owing the dangerous energy to spurt out like hot liquid, ‘Mum, it’s not al about you, it’s not al about Tam or Dil y, or me, either, it’s about other people too, who never did you any harm except by existing, which they couldn’t help, and who didn’t ask for the piano or expect the piano, they just politely wondered when it would suit you to have them arrange for it to go. Don’t take your anger at Dad out on them, it isn’t fair, it isn’t OK, it isn’t like you.’
‘Amy! ’
Amy slid the photograph back into the envelope.
‘How dare you,’ Chrissie said. ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’
Amy’s head drooped. She felt the energy drain away and be replaced by a tremendous desire to cry. She put the back of her hand up against her mouth and pressed. She was not going to cry in front of her mother.
Chrissie stood up.
‘I want you to think about what I’ve just said to you. I want you to think about family loyalty. I want you to use your emotional intel igence and feel the shock this has al been.’
She moved to the door and put her hand on the knob.
‘Amy? ’
‘Yes.’
‘Wil you?’
Amy nodded. Chrissie turned the doorknob and went out into the little landing outside, not closing the door behind her. Amy waited a few moments and then she tipped backwards on to her bed, and rol ed towards the wal , her knees drawn up, the photograph in its envelope held against her chest. Only then, as quietly as she could, did she al ow herself to cry.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Bernie Harrison liked quality in a restaurant. He liked stiff white tablecloths, and heavy cutlery and his fish to be fileted with a flourish at the table, and presented to him complete with a half-lemon neatly wrapped in muslin. He liked carpets, and thick curtains, and properly dressed waiters who said things like ‘Mr Harrison, Chef has some guinea fowl he’d very much like to offer you today.’ Booking a table at his favourite restaurant in the centre of the city, he specified a particular table for two, and was not in the least pleased to be told that that table had already been reserved.
‘Then unreserve it,’ Bernie said to the young woman – Dutch? Scandinavian? Eastern European? – on the other end of the line.
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mr Harrison.’
Bernie glared ahead of him. He usual y had his personal assistant telephone restaurants for him, but he found he did not particularly want Moira to know that he was giving Margaret Rossiter dinner. Moira had been the late Mrs Harrison’s choice of assistant for Bernie – personable without being seductive, middle-aged and capable, with enough of her own family and life to prevent her from becoming needy – and she had been silently but eloquently intolerant of Bernie’s entertaining any woman alone since his wife’s death five years before. Admittedly, Bernie’s taste, in the immediate aftermath of Renée’s death, had run to the extremely obvious, but Margaret Rossiter was of the calibre of lady dinner companion that Moira considered to have the potential to be a real threat. Margaret Rossiter would be a catch, even for a man like Bernie.
‘I’ve eaten at La Réserve, young lady,’ Bernie said, ‘since before you were born. I want table six, in the alcove, and a bottle of Laurent-Perrier on ice, by eight o’clock tomorrow night, and no more bloody nonsense. If you please.’
Then he put the phone down. Stupid girl. Not only did he want to give Margaret Rossiter a good time, he wanted her to see that he was a man of consequence who was acknowledged as such, in places where you paid London prices. He put his hands flat either side of his head and smoothed his thick iron-grey hair back. Renée had hated to see him do that. Touching your hair in public, she said, was common.
Margaret had reacted to his invitation to dinner without surprise.
‘Wel , that’s nice of you, Bernie, but what are you after?’
‘Your company, my dear.’
‘I don’t like flattery, Bernie.’
He beamed into the telephone.
‘I’l come clean. We’ve done a few good deals just now, and I’l admit I couldn’t have got the Sage gig without you. I think you’ve had a rough time just recently with Richie going and al that upset. We get along fine and I’d like to buy you dinner.’
‘Thank you, Bernie.’
‘I’l send a car for you.’
‘You won’t,’ Margaret said. ‘There’s a perfectly good taxi service in Tynemouth.’
‘If you insist.’
‘I do.’
Bernie beamed again.
‘Til Wednesday.’
Renée Harrison had not cared for Margaret Rossiter. Renée had been much better-looking than Margaret, much better-groomed, with a more sophisticated taste in food and friends and travel. She had also come from a professional family in Harrogate, and she preferred not to remember that Margaret and Bernie had been at King Edward School in North Shields together, in Miss Grey’s class, and that Bernie’s father had been a fisherman and Bernie’s mother had worked in Welch’s sweet factory. This unease was confounded by Bernie’s chosen career, which, although it paid for the house in Gosforth and the cruises and the golf membership and the wardrobes of superior clothes, was not one that Renée would have chosen, even if she did occasional y get to shake the hand of the likes of Dame Shirley Bassey. To al but her most intimate and trustworthy friends, Renée had referred to Bernie as an impresario.