Lucas read it and reread it, trying to suck meaning from the gaps. She was thinking about him. She was sorry. But still no kisses. A few feet away, he was aware of Lily delivering a hushed status report to Matteo, and of Esther, sending lots of texts by the look of things, but making no calls. They had lives, it seemed to him, while he had nothing now but dread of what lay ahead, both that afternoon and ever after.

43

Dylan watched the old man eat his porridge, scraping the spoon in neat radial lines for each mouthful, from the outside of the bowl to the middle. He had stood guard over Dylan as usual for the cooking, his breath full of the wheeze that was worse in the mornings, checking everything was done as he had coached.

‘Remember the chestnuts need doing,’ he said now, taking his porridge bowl to the sink and washing it up. ‘Nutmeg, butter, breadcrumbs, pepper and salt.’

‘I did that already, Gramps, remember?’ Dylan received a nod, surly because of the Gramps, and then forced himself to wait, patiently, while the old man reached for the egg box on top of the fridge, its contents still warm, Dylan having rootled them out of the hen-house straw that morning. Noting the flinch of discomfort as the old man stretched, worse than usual, it looked like, Dylan sprang up from his chair.

‘Would you like me to…?’ Another pointed glare sent him hastily through the washing ritual of his own bowl instead. There were rules. It didn’t do to break them, but it meant you knew where you were.

‘We agreed on poached,’ his grandfather growled, gently lifting the lid of the egg box with the slowness and awe of one expecting to find treasure. ‘Not your forte.’

‘But I can so do them now,’ Dylan cried, ‘just how you like them.’ He stood close until his grandfather relented, pushing the eggs towards him before sitting back down, rubbing his big gnarled hands over his chest where the pain that was never mentioned began. It was heartburn, he had said, clutching the same spot when Dylan found him on the floor one morning, and then barking instructions to fetch a blister-pack of the tablets from the drawer beside his bed. The drawer was full of other pill boxes too, which Dylan had since worked out were delivered by the old lady called Iris who swung by in her blue van most Wednesdays, with a newspaper and fresh bread as well as the medicine.