‘If this girl can be a friend to Beth,’ Mark said after the laughter died away, ‘then I don’t care how good or bad her English is, or what her reasons are for coming. Perhaps it will be the best thing that ever happened to Beth.’

‘Yes, perhaps,’ Abi replied. But her voice sounded weak and unconvincing, even to herself.

5

Beth couldn’t take her eyes off the girl. The candyfloss hair, the ease with which she moved beneath Beth’s avid gaze. It was like an exotic bird had suddenly landed inside the bedroom, making everything around her look drab and grey.

They were at an age where assessing each other’s appearance was instinctive – irrepressible – but Corinne conveyed little interest in studying Beth, and if she was bothered by Beth’s attention, she didn’t show it. She touched the keyboard of the laptop, and Beth’s eyes travelled to her fingertips – nails that were bitten down, the stubs painted a deep purple.

‘This is yours?’ Corinne asked, surprised.

It was a silver iMac, gleaming with newness.

‘My mum got it for me. She gets like a special discount through her office.’

Beth tried to sound nonchalant. She didn’t want to get into a conversation about the row that had erupted the day she came home from school and found her old computer was gone. Tearful protests over the loss of documents, photographs that she’d saved, privacy breached. Abi, tight-faced, had looked at her and said in a low voice: ‘It’s for the best, Beth. You know that as well as I do.’ And as she’d moved to leave the room, Abi had paused at the door, taken by a sudden ferocity, and hissed at Beth: ‘My God, you should be thanking me!’

Disturbed by the memory, she looked down quickly, but Corinne didn’t seem to notice. Impetuously, she kicked off her flip-flops and hopped up on to the bed. Leaning into the poster of Justin Bieber, she kissed his pouting lips, turning to look back at Beth, her face shining with mischief, before jumping down off the bed again.

Beth liked the way Corinne laughed. And she liked the way Corinne moved around the room, so sure of herself, a liveliness within her mannerisms, the busy way her attention flitted from one thing to another. It made her think of Lisa – not because Corinne and Lisa were alike, but because they were so different. Lisa was always quiet, thinking her big, deep thoughts. ‘She’s like a nun-in-training or something,’ Eva had once remarked. ‘A fucking postulant.’ But Beth had loved that about Lisa: the quality of her stillness, her grace. It made Beth feel calm. Lately, whenever Beth thought about Lisa, it was the loss of her gentle serenity that hurt the most. She missed her friend.