“Can’t you knock?” Her fury is palpable. Melissa feels automatic guilt, a low-down flooding like waters breaking. Ridiculous, she’s done nothing wrong.

“This is the sitting room, Izzy. Everyone’s space.”

“Where’s Daddy?”

“His flight arrives at three. He’ll be here when you get back later.”

The blue eyes blaze. “Back from what? What have you arranged now?”

“Your day with the teacher, Daddy’s landscaper’s wife. You met her when they came to lunch. You liked her.”

Izzy jumps up, her laptop clatters to the ground. “What’s the matter with you? It’s half term. Why are you doing this?”

“Calm down, darling. It’s about finding you the right kind of help—”

“Why pretend it’s for me when it’s actually for you? You want to get rid of me so you can work, it’s pathetic.”

Isabelle chucks a cushion across the room; it hits a vase, which topples to the floor and smashes on the marble. She reaches for another.

“There’ll be a couple of other children too,” Melissa says quickly.

The cushion lowers.

“How old?”

“Eve’s daughter’s eleven and there’s a boy coming of about the same age.” She glances at Izzy, hurries on. “Her other children may be around sometimes, a girl of six and a little boy of two.”

“You have to be joking.” Izzy’s eyes narrow.

“Everyone will look up to you; you’ll be leader of the gang.”

Izzy’s face becomes thoughtful. No one waits with her by the entrance to the school lane where Melissa finds her at the end of the day, slumped against the railings by herself. Friends never last. The only person she goes to the movies or shopping with is her father; she must yearn for friends of her own.

“How much will you give me if I go?”

“How much?” Melissa is confused.

“As in a hundred pounds,” Izzy replies impatiently.

It’s impossible for her daughter to look anything other than beautiful, the thick fair hair, the fierce blue stare, the way she stands on long legs as graceful as a colt; strong bodied. Dyslexia is better than anorexia. Funny how flowery they both sound, like girls’ names, pretty girls.

“Fifty.”

Everything comes with a cost. Izzy’s cooperation is cheap at the price; she’s so angry these days. It’s just frustration, the teachers say, common with dyslexia, and then there’s her age of course. They organized a tutor and extra lessons in school, but nothing has worked so far. At the same time that these thoughts run through her mind, others are speeding beneath them, like traffic on motorways that twist one under another. Izzy’s right; Melissa can finish her work if her daughter is occupied, she can even fit in a run.

Izzy smiles as though she can read her mother’s mind; she probably can. “Done,” she says, letting the cushion drop to the floor.

“They live in College Road; it’ll take us ten minutes to walk there,” Melissa tells her. They could chat. Izzy might open up on the way. She can see them now, like those advertisements for mini-vacations: a mother and daughter making their way through a park with flowers in the background, linking arms and laughing, special bonding time.