“It’s not my problem you’re ‘just talking’ to one of the known perpetrators of the playground fire. He’s an arsonist, which you probably think is sexy, in your twisted way. For all I know, you’re carrying his little arsonist child. I don’t mind, really. Girls far younger than you are getting married and raising children in some countries.”

“Ha!” Shy shouted.

“Settle down you two,” Wendy said jealously. Roy and Shy could have these little I’m-only-pretending-to-hate-you-spats because they were so close. She and Shy never had spats. Shy’s older sisters had always been jealous of it too. “What do you mean he’s an arsonist?” She was having trouble processing all this information at once. Her brain was still hung up on the Latin teacher and his tattoos.

“Never mind,” Shy grumbled, glaring at her father as she began shaping the cookie dough into balls and placing them in neat rows on the trays. It was always easier to keep her mother a little bit in the dark. Now her dad had spoiled it.

“Did any of your teachers have tattoos?” Wendy asked Roy, and Shy was relieved.

He laughed. “None.”

Wendy was so good at compartmentalizing. She couldn’t be bothered about Shy’s possible boyfriend because she was focused on Shy’s crush on her Latin teacher, which was alarming, but perfectly harmless. Wendy was so capable, too. In a moment she’d be minding the clock, making sure the cookies weren’t burned. She never got so preoccupied with the unnecessary that she couldn’t function. Unlike himself. He hadn’t even gotten dressed yet and it was what, six o’clock? Meanwhile Wendy was running Fleurt. Before they were married, Wendy wrote a feature a day, supporting him through the writing of Yellow. She didn’t even insist on a big fuss of a wedding. They were both too busy. They did it at the Kensington and Chelsea registry office. It took fifteen minutes.

“Maybe you should take a pottery class instead,” Wendy told Shy.

“Instead of what?” Shy pointed at the oven and Wendy slid the trays in and set the timer on the microwave for eleven minutes.

“Table tennis.”

Shy clattered the mixing bowl into the sink and whirled around. “I’ve already signed up for it, Mum. I’m trying to get involved in things like you said. For college.”

“Did you know,” Roy interrupted, trying to dilute the tension, “that one of the best subjects to study at college as far as jobs and salary is pharmacology? The worst are education and social work, that sort of thing. There are too many of them and the pay is shit.”

He stopped talking. His wife and daughter were staring at him.

“I’ve become somewhat addicted to Google,” he admitted. “You can find everything on it. You just type in a question and loads of answers pop up.”