Rat ponders. She’s missed her chance, she realizes. All that saving up for the day her granny would take her shopping and teach her how to eat with chopsticks, and how to fix her hair, and tell her stories about rock stars—it will never happen. She’s come too late. That merry mocking woman in the poncho made of white feathers is as long gone as the racehorses and ballet dancers on Gillem’s wall.

“I’m sorry,” she says, finally.

Gillem does not answer.

“Does she live in London?”

“She lives in a nursing home—an upmarket sort of nursing home off the Marylebone Road.”

Rat is taken aback. “Why do you keep her in a home? Can’t she live here with you?”

Gillem snaps back with unexpected violence. “Because she hasn’t a fucking clue where she is, so she might as well be somewhere safe.”

He gets to his feet, depositing the teapot and cups in the sink, and Rat knows that their session is over.

Chapter 4

The last week in June is glorious. Hot, dry, clear. You want to be outside all day. Under a horse-chestnut tree in the park, or strolling along the canal. The evenings are billowy, pink-tinged. It doesn’t get dark till ten. People do unaccustomed things in the street, such as kiss.

Rat is suddenly determined to get out and explore. Who knows how much longer she and Morgan will be in London?

She’s gone on a boat up the Thames to Hampton Court with Kate, and she’s taken Morgan and Artemio on a giant Ferris wheel called the London Eye, an expedition marred by Artemio’s being in a fury because Morgan had borrowed his Game Boy without asking and run down the battery. And she’s gone on her own to the Tate to see exactly what Gillem meant when he said English people couldn’t paint and that all the good English painters were Dutch or German.

One evening, Kate’s sister and her family came over for dinner, and they ate out in the garden. This time, when Tarquin asked Rat a direct question, she actually managed to answer without making a complete fool of herself.

On Sunday, she and Morgan met Mirjana and spent all day helping Mirjana’s boyfriend, Zoran, varnish the floorboards of his new café. That night, Zoran took them to dinner at an African restaurant, and Rat and Mirjana got drunk on palm wine and embarrassed the boys by trying to sing a Serge Gainsbourg song to which neither could remember the lyrics.

All week, she has steered clear of Gillem. When they meet, he is as courteous as ever, but since their conversation about his mother, something has changed. Their fragile camaraderie has somehow been impaired, and he is closed to her. It is as if they are back to zero.