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Back A Change of Circumstance
Chapters (67)
  1. Cover
  2. One
  3. Two
  4. Three
  5. Four
  6. Five
  7. Six
  8. Seven
  9. Eight
  10. Nine
  11. Ten
  12. Eleven
  13. Twelve
  14. Thirteen
  15. Fourteen
  16. Fifteen
  17. Sixteen
  18. Seventeen
  19. Eighteen
  20. Nineteen
  21. Twenty
  22. Twenty-One
  23. Twenty-Two
  24. Twenty-Three
  25. Twenty-Four
  26. Twenty-Five
  27. Twenty-Six
  28. Twenty-Seven
  29. Twenty-Eight
  30. Twenty-Nine
  31. Thirty
  32. Thirty-One
  33. Thirty-Two
  34. Thirty-Three
  35. Thirty-Four
  36. Thirty-Five
  37. Thirty-Six
  38. Thirty-Seven
  39. Thirty-Eight
  40. Thirty-Nine
  41. Forty
  42. Forty-One
  43. Forty-Two
  44. Forty-Three
  45. Forty-Four
  46. Forty-Five
  47. Forty-Six
  48. Forty-Seven
  49. Forty-Eight
  50. Forty-Nine
  51. Fifty
  52. Fifty-One
  53. Fifty-Two
  54. Fifty-Three
  55. Fifty-Four
  56. Fifty-Five
  57. Fifty-Six
  58. Fifty-Seven
  59. Fifty-Eight
  60. Fifty-Nine
  61. Sixty
  62. Sixty-One
  63. Sixty-Two
  64. Sixty-Three
  65. Sixty-Four
  66. Sixty-Five
  67. Sixty-Six

There was no signal so she ran on closer to the village, found a wall to sit on and then the ringing tone came at once.

‘The person you are calling is not available . . .’

Olivia snapped it off and jogged about on the spot for a few minutes. He was on the phone but he would answer now, or soon, she would just keep on ringing.

‘Yes?’

He sounded cross and distracted and out of breath and that was never what he said when he answered his phone, he said his name, ‘Jeff Tonks here.’

‘Dad?’

In the background she could hear a baby crying.

‘Dad? Where are you?’

‘Olivia? What’s the matter?’

‘I said where are you?’

‘At home.’

‘What’s all that noise?’

‘Oh God, one of them, I don’t know which one, I can’t tell.’

‘One of what? Dad, what are you talking about? I want to come and see you.’

‘Christ no, Livi, not now, we couldn’t cope.’

‘What do you mean? Who’s there with you?’

There was a silence so that for a moment she thought the signal had gone. Then a sigh. She waited, very cold now and needing to move.

‘We’ve got twin boys, Madison and I, they’re a couple of weeks old.’ Another silence and then, as if he were pleading with her, trying to get her on side. ‘Livi, you have two baby brothers. Aren’t you pleased?’

Olivia dropped the phone and bent over to vomit on the verge.

Seventeen

‘What was that beep?’

‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

‘Yeah. Didn’t hear no beep though.’

‘You hear it, Tommy?’

‘Shut up, I keep missing the target.’

‘You’re supposed to be doing geography stuff not playing that.’

‘Who says?’

‘You’ll get in trouble again.’

‘There, I heard it then, Brookie.’

‘Dunno what you’re on about.’

The phone had beeped at him last night after they’d gone to bed and he’d had to scrabble about to find it and then finger it all over to press the off button in the dark. It hadn’t mattered because the others had slept through it. He hadn’t been sure what to do, never having had a phone of his own, none of them had except their dad. There was never enough money. So Brookie’s phone was fair game.

‘Give it me to look at or I’ll tell him you got it and he’ll think you nicked it. You did anyway, didn’t you?’

‘No.’

‘All right, if you say where you got it we might believe you.’

He wished he hadn’t got it, like the bag, they’d gone on about that as well, but a rucksack out of a skip was all right, they’d believed him, just about, because it was what happened with stuff. Just not with new phones.