Big news or little news. It didn’t sound like bad news, anyway.

Maybe it wasn’t Mark who was going to end up hating her. Grown-ups didn’t hate children, anyway, they were past that kind of thing. It was children who hated grown-ups. Or each other. And Ava was still young enough to count as a child, whatever airs she might give herself.

Maybe the person who was really going to end up hating Ava was me.

Ten

Ava

Even though I was pretty confident that I’d figured out what was going on, I was much less sure about when they were going to tell us. Left to herself Mum would probably have broken the news fairly quickly, but Mum with Mark was a different ball game. They’d have to agree. Mum wasn’t running the show any more, and she wouldn’t want to upset him, especially not now. Whatever he felt would be the best timing of the announcement, she’d probably go with.

In the end, they told us that first evening on the balcony.

Mum was waiting out there when we arrived. She was leaning against the balcony and looking out at the view, and she was wearing a blue dress I hadn’t seen before: it was a loose but flattering cut and made her look slim, and I wondered whether I’d got it wrong. She really did look pretty good for a woman with two kids who worked all hours and spent them on her feet.

Then I saw the way Mark looked at her – really soppy, and really, really pleased with himself – and I decided I had it right after all.

They didn’t launch straight into it. First of all Mark fussed around getting us drinks. Ellie had some lemonade from their mini-bar fridge, and I had some of the half-bottle of white wine Mark had ordered from room service. Dad never drank white if he could help it, but presumably Mark wasn’t bothered by its slightly effeminate connotations. Or maybe he just didn’t want any stains on the fresh clothes he’d put on.

Mark checked with Mum before pouring it for me and she agreed to it as if the risk of me following in Dad’s footsteps and developing an appetite for the stuff was the least of her worries. Which was right, in my view. I liked the idea of pacing myself. A bit like Mark, actually. Dad would’ve polished off that half-bottle pretty much as soon as you could say swallow, whatever colour the wine was. But Mark still had plenty left for me.

Mum was drinking iced water. No surprise there. I glanced at Ellie to see if she was taking any of this in. She was frowning slightly as if she wasn’t too sure about things, but it didn’t look to me like she’d realised what was going on yet. Sooner or later she was in for a shock.

Well, I had tried to warn her. Maybe I should have told her what I thought, but how could I when I didn’t know for sure?