‘You’re clever,’ I said. ‘I wish I was half as clever as you.’

‘Oh, you’re smart enough. You’ve always got your nose in a book, or else you’re talking to that tall officer fella—I’ve seen you in the dining car.’

‘That’s just Jim. We met on the ship.’

‘You don’t need to explain yourself to me.’

I picked up my book then, feeling exposed, for Mary had been watching me, along with who knew how many others. I stared at the pages of print, but the words swam before me, the things Jim had said making my head ache. I didn’t want to talk anymore about babies or woollen jumpers, about husbands waiting and mums who we’d left. I wanted to read about the Joads in the government camp and Winfield passing out picking peaches because he hadn’t had enough to eat. I wanted to read about the Joads breaking strike and not making enough money to eat anything but cornmeal mush. Pushing away my world, I buried myself in theirs.

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 23

Hannah is asleep. I know she has hardly heard a thing I’ve said today, but I haven’t stopped talking when I’ve been in the room. The words are filling the space of what I should be saying. I’m worried about you. It’s time to call Caroline.

I watch her sleeping as I shuffle around finding my things. She is beautiful with her face relaxed, though too thin, and the shoulder poking above the sheet is mostly bone. I remember noticing it for the first time when she was thirteen—she had gone through one of those chubby phases that adolescent girls have but rapidly grew, and with the height came a leanness which surprised me. It wasn’t just that she was thin but that her knees and elbows seemed too big because her limbs were too skinny. I watched her push the food around on her plate when she visited for a weekend, saw her read the nutrition information on the cereal and yoghurt before she took a few bites of breakfast. She was all hair and metallic braces, all skin and bony hips swallowed by too-big pyjamas.

‘I’m worried,’ I said to Caroline when she came to pick her up one Sunday. I’d asked her to come out to the garden, ostensibly to look at my camellias, but really to talk about Hannah. ‘Is she eating at home?’

‘Of course she’s eating. What do you mean?’

‘I’m not criticising you. I’ve just noticed how thin she’s become. And this weekend I’ve been watching her. She doesn’t so much eat as move the food around.’

Caroline’s face fell and she wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘I’ve been bugging her about it all year, but she’s just getting worse,’ she said, ‘not better.’