One kid, a little Year Seven girl, finds this funny. But it’s her and her alone, and when she realises, she slaps her hands across her mouth, mortified.

A restless energy has returned.

‘FOCUS,’ I yell, ‘or there won’t be any auditions and I’ll allocate parts willy-nilly.’

Shit. Can’t believe I just said ‘willy-nilly’.

I don’t want to be here. I shouldn’t be here. Why the hell am I here? Why?

I take a deep breath.

When I arrive home, Jack’s smell will hit me. His fat thumbprint on the bathroom mirror will take me by surprise. His drawer will invite me to choose a t-shirt I can wear to sleep in on the sofa. That’s why I’m here – to have those precious snippets to look forward to.

Jonah Matthews appears with his whole crew. ‘Are we on time, Miss?’

He’s brought his girlfriend regardless of what I said, presuming his girlfriend is the one almost twice his height with an intimidating stare and a lip piercing.

‘Right, let’s get started,’ I say.

Si bashes out a chirpy eight bars of generic cheesy musical theatre. I’m not sure I have the energy to see this through – even walking towards the piano makes my legs ache.

‘Everything okay, Miss Roscoe?’ Si asks, a rhetorical question if ever there was one.

I give one, bold nod.

‘Layla Birch,’ I say, returning to my Venus fly trap doodle. ‘You’re up first.’

*

After school, I pick up a decent bottle of wine from the Sainbury’s Local. The auditions went well. A few dodgy performances and, unexpectedly, Layla Birch messed up her lyrics, but on the whole, I was impressed.

As I open the front door, I stumble upon a package.

It’s soft, small enough to get through the letterbox.

I pick it up and read who it’s addressed to.

Miss Chloe Roscoe (and Jack!)

I recognise the writing.

Fishing out the contents, I feel the soft cotton between my thumb and fingers. It’s the beige gingham cushion covers, two of them, all ready to slip onto plain square cushions and add a bit of home from home. If Jack were here, oh how we’d laugh. I’d insist we didn’t use them, but Jack would disagree. He’d love how much I hate them. He’d make poor Rudolf redundant just to revel in this moment for as long as possible, winding me up to the point of me admitting that, fine, I can learn to like them. I slump against the radiator and squeeze the gingham so hard that I wouldn’t be surprised if it bled. The handwritten note accompanying the package has fallen beside me on the floor.

Congratulations on your new home! We hope you’re both really happy there.

Love Mum and Dad xxx

8

It takes me another two days to ring my mum.