‘No music.’

‘But we’ll remember it, won’t we?’

When she said we I knew she really just meant herself. She sat for hours at a time in front of the piano at home, whereas I was forever looking for excuses to get out of practising, and Mummy didn’t pay too much attention to whether I did or not.

‘It’ll be something to do after dinner,’ Olivia said. ‘If we’re not already done in from all this fresh air.’

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. I could see the shape of her eyes moving restlessly under the lids. I sat watching her. Both of us had changed in appearance since we first became friends, but we had spent so much of our time together that I barely noticed Olivia’s looks alter any more than I did my own. Since she had been away at school in Staffordshire and I didn’t see her for weeks on end, though, I’d begun to notice things. Livy’s voice, which was deep and strong, had become even more forthright with a confidence that the school had given her, its Birmingham intonation fading. Her hair was thicker and glossier. She was thinner, had a waist suddenly, and breasts. Curiously I looked down at my own body. I’d certainly not been short-changed on that front. Just like my Granny Munro. My legs looked much pinker and rounder than Olivia’s slim ones.

‘I wish they hadn’t sent you away to that school.’ It was far from the first time I’d made this complaint. ‘It’s not the same without you around.’

I was waiting for Olivia to agree and say how much she missed me during the term time and how there was no one else at school who was half such a good friend. This familiar conversation was like a ritual seal on our friendship.

But this time Olivia said, without even opening her eyes, ‘Well, it could be worse. Gets me away from them at least.’

‘Who?’

‘Mummy and Daddy, of course.’

‘But they’re marvellous, your parents!’

Olivia started laughing, sitting up hugging her knees, her body shaking.

‘What? What did I say?’

‘Oh, Katie. You’re so innocent, aren’t you?’

I felt cross suddenly. Olivia was putting on that superior tone she sometimes used, as if the fact that she was a mere six months older let her into all sorts of adult secrets.

‘I’m not,’ I said sulkily. ‘Granny Munro tells me all sorts of things.’

Olivia laughed again. ‘How is your mad granny?’

‘She’s not mad,’ I protested, with a reluctant grin. ‘She does it all on purpose.’

Granny Munro, Daddy’s mother, had come from Scotland to live with us only three months ago, after my grandfather died. She had made up a little bit for Livy not being around. Already she had appeared at the breakfast table with no clothes on, told the local grocer’s that she needed biscuits and cheese on tick because we wouldn’t give her any money and set up a trestle table at the front of the house in Chantry Road in order to hold her own jumble sale because she had brought too many possessions to Birmingham with her. She was driving Mummy nearly demented.