Becca is here. Her hair products line the sides of the bath in their blackberry-colored bottles and her heavy, glossy copies of Vogue cascade across the floor of my room. She is a different Becca from the one I saw at Christmas. Sleeker and sharper. Her hair is in a shining bob, shorter at the back than at the front, veering up the sides of her head. She has smoky eyes and vampish lips and she stares at headshots of models, her fingers snipping the air as she imagines how to re-create their hairstyles. Straightaway she wants to give me a trim to cheer me up, and I try not to take it personally as she plans a style that will “liven up my look.”

There are remnants of the old Becca, though. She still loves banana milk at breakfast, despite pretending to “prefer a black coffee these days.” She sleeps rolled up in a sleeping bag next to my bed and we whisper into the night like we used to when we were young. Becca talks about her ambitions and urges me to get some of my own, something more concrete than just wanting to write stories, use words. Best of all, her presence seems to keep Nick away. I’m starting to wonder if Mum’s told him not to come up while she’s here. Maybe she thinks my cousin’s shrewder than me, will work things out. But then he reappears.

Us three girls are sitting round the kitchen table, a sunset glow filtering through the blinds. Becca’s trying to persuade Mum to let her remodel her hair into a “layered bob, very now,” and Mum’s poured us each a small glass of wine. The atmosphere has brightened in our flat these last few days, and I’ve let myself get swept up in it, my worries beginning to shrink. When I hear him opening the front door, the dark shadow returns.

“I’m guessing that’s Nick rather than a burglar,” Becca says as we listen to clattering from the hall.

“You can meet him at last,” Mum says shrilly. “I bet you were starting to think I’d made him up!”

“Your toyboy’s the talk of the family in Derby.” Becca grins and I wish she’d stop—wish she wouldn’t talk about Nick in such a flippant way.

He walks into the kitchen, the collar of his denim jacket turned up around his ears, and as usual goes straight to Mum’s side, gathering her hair between his hands as though he can tell Becca was only just entertaining plans to chop it off. Then he turns to Becca with a slow smile. “So you’re the brainy rebel of the family, by all accounts.”

“My reputation precedes me.” Becca’s laugh seems genuine and her eyes linger on Nick.