‘If there’s something you’re not telling me, if you know anything, anything at all . . .’

‘I’ve told you, I don’t. He must have really wanted to though, hey.’

‘It’s not that simple, Basil. For him as much as anybody.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe it’s better – you don’t know.’

‘Basil . . .’

Leonie and Basil were standing in front of a quite decent art-supplies section.

‘Anna!’ said Leonie. And Basil turned around and beamed at me.

‘Just the person,’ he said. ‘Just in the nick of time.’

Basil seemed happy to see me and I was surprised at how happy I was to see the both of them. People I knew. Family friends. ‘For what?’ I asked.

‘To save me from my mother’s fifth degree.’

‘Third degree, you little twerp,’ said Leonie. ‘Hey honey, you alright? You look sad, or sick, or sad and sick.’

‘No, I’m good,’ I said. ‘Maybe bus-sick. Probably hungry. Have only eaten gevulde koeken and drunk too much coffee.’

‘Oh god, Hessel’s really got you having coffee,’ said Basil, giggling with glee. ‘He must rate you. Hey,’ he said, ‘you should come back and have lunch at our house.’

‘I don’t know about that, Basil,’ Leonie said.

‘Why not?’ said Basil.

‘I just don’t reckon Anna wants to deal with people right now.’

‘What people?’

‘The cousins.’

‘I don’t mind,’ I said.

‘She doesn’t mind,’ said Basil.

‘She doesn’t know what she doesn’t mind, Basil, so just drop it,’ said Leonie.

‘Not this again, Ma –’

‘Okay now, you two, the pub’s open. Come on, I’ll buy you both a burger and chips and then we’ll run you home, Anna. The buses are totally shit.’

The pub was nice – cheerful and full at lunchtime – and my veggie burger was actually really good, which I’m ashamed to say surprised me. I was also surprised to find that suddenly I couldn’t come at eating egg. Two days ago egg had been delicious, but today my stomach lurched and I had to excuse myself to go to the bathroom. A false alarm, it turned out – saliva gathering and then dissipating. Fuck. How soon did morning sickness kick in? I thought I’d have longer.

As I walked back to the table I heard Leonie saying to Basil, ‘Because she doesn’t get to be instantly included in everything, alright? Some of our things aren’t for her. Some are, some aren’t.’

As I sat down my phone buzzed in my pocket. I gave it a quick glance – Nassim calling. I froze – do I hang up, or let it ring out? Which was less alarming for him? I let it go through to voicemail, and then when my phone pinged a new message alert and I still didn’t check it, Basil gave me a quizzical look, but I refused to meet his eye. Instead I set about pulling the egg from my burger and laying it aside.

Days ago I’d never seen this place or met these people. But my mother had – well, Leonie, anyway. They went to the same school, Basil had said. It gave me a strange sort of thrill to know that my mother had actually known this woman when they were kids, when they were teenagers. That this woman had known my mother. All of a sudden I was really curious. I wanted a picture of my mother at my age, how she was: how she was different from me, how she was the same.