But as she opened her mouth, Tamsyn swung her legs off the bed and looked up at her, eyes fixed and unwavering. ‘My dad died.’

Edie raised her eyebrows. A dead father definitely made her interesting again.

‘I think I come over a bit weird because of it.’

Edie didn’t say anything.

‘Sorry. Maybe I should have told you sooner. I—’

‘How old were you?’

‘Ten.’

Edie felt a small twist in her stomach. Ten years old. A little younger than the age she’d been when she first found her mother passed out on the floor, pale and still. For a while she’d been convinced she was dead and it terrified her. She’d sat beside her for ages, holding her hand, stroking her, begging her to wake up. Then her father appeared and sent her out of their bedroom. As she left she heard him muttering crossly, saying ‘at this rate she’d be dead before Christmas.’ Shortly afterwards Edie returned to school and every night she went to bed convinced she’d get a message in the morning that this time her mother hadn’t woken up.

‘What happened to him?’ she asked, sitting down beside Tamsyn on the bed.

‘He drowned.’

Edie rested her hand on Tamsyn’s knee.

‘He was a volunteer with the RNLI.’ She hesitated and glanced at Edie. ‘The lifeboats? He was called out in a storm that had come in too fast. There were a couple of tourists who’d got caught in a dinghy. Idiots. They died too. His body was washed up the next morning a few miles down the coast.’ She paused and blinked slowly, then whispered: ‘Sometimes it hurts so much I can’t breathe. I miss him every day.’

Tamsyn became animated as she talked about her father’s death. Her shyness evaporated. Her raw grief was palpable, but so was the inner strength which Edie had seen a flash of the day before.

‘That’s dreadful. I’m so sorry,’ Edie said. And she meant it. ‘You poor thing.’

Without thinking she put her arm around Tamsyn and for a while they sat like that, peaceful, no sound except the lilt of the breaking waves which rolled in through the slightly open window.

CHAPTER TEN

Tamsyn

July 1986

There had been a moment in Edie’s room, when she caught me staring at her, that I’d thought I’d ruined it all. I’d been distracted by her. Carefully studying the slope of her nose, the tiny silver stud that glinted in one nostril, her flawless eyeliner drawn into extravagant sweeps on each eyelid. But when she challenged me I noted the sudden cooling in her. I’d seen the look she gave me before, many times, on the girls and boys at school. It generally came with a dismissive sneer and a silent promise not to be seen dead with me.

When I saw it on Edie’s face I panicked.

Offering up my father’s death as an excuse was risky. It could have easily scared her off. She might not have seen it as an explanation. She might not have cared. I was trading information for a second chance. But the gamble paid off and within seconds her face softened and her body opened up like a flower in water, arms uncrossing, fists unclenching, eyes widening.