In the car on the way back we have all the windows open. Mum keeps saying she’ll die of heat exhaustion, she’ll surely die. Dad says nothing. Hot wind blasts round the car, battering our heads. It’s like a hairdryer has been let loose on the back seat. Shane lets his knee rest against mine. Every time we go round a corner I feel its pressure. A drip of sweat crawls past his dark eyebrow and into the hollow of his cheek. My hair blows everywhere, strands of it brushing against Shane’s shoulder. I keep laughing and hooking it back with my hand, but he doesn’t look at me, he just keeps his knee there, sweating against mine.

two

Spring, 1985

Shane’s doorbell plays ‘God Save the Queen’ all the way through before his mum answers it.

‘Just a minute, love.’ She calls back over her shoulder, ‘Three eggs, Shane! Only three!’

She turns back to me. ‘We’re making a cake! A Victoria sponge!’

It’s the first time I’ve been to Shane’s house. It’s the Easter holidays. Things are bad at our place. And it’s not Mum’s thing with Buggery this time. It’s more than that. She hasn’t moved from her place on the sofa for two days. There’s wet tissues all over the cushions, like strands of melting snow. Dad’s face has fallen into a grey heap. He tells me to get out of the house while he sorts her out.

A huge jet-black bun sits on top of Shane’s mum’s head like a dollop of chocolate. She’s wearing green plastic earrings. Her matching metallic eyeshadow has fallen into the creases around her eyes. Shane’s mum also has creases around her wide mouth, and all up her neck.

‘You’re Dan’s girl.’

‘I’m Joanna.’

‘Joanna!’ She opens the door wider, reaches out, touches my cheek with papery fingers. Then she stands and stares at me so hard that there’s nowhere to look but the ground.

‘Sorry, love! It’s just – it’s so good to see you! Come in, Joanna, come in!’

She pulls me inside and begins taking my coat off. ‘Let’s chuck that over there,’ she says, ‘you’ll be far too warm in that.’ Yanking my arm out of my sleeve, she drags me down the hall, talking all the time.

‘Shane will be so pleased to see you!’ She stops. Takes a handful of my cheek. Squeezes and releases several times. Then adds, ‘As am I, Joanna!’

While walking and talking, neither her chocolate-hair nor her earrings move an inch. ‘Dan has always been a good man. Your Dad, that is.’ She grips my arm. ‘Did he tell you he came to see us in the hospital, after the accident?’

He didn’t tell me that.

Shane’s house smells of pee. But there’s another, musty smell, which must be the oven, because when we get to the kitchen it’s much stronger. Steam runs down the windows, making the net curtains stick to the glass in patches. The kitchen cupboards are green, like Shane’s Mum’s earrings. Packets of cereal stand on the draining board. They’ve got everything. Sugar Puffs. Shreddies. Frosties. Ricicles. There’s a heap of dirty laundry between the bin and the back door. A washed-out flesh-coloured bra straddles the top of the pile.