The Other Family Read Online Free

put it on the table.
    ‘You can’t really just
text
her—’
    Chrissie made a sudden little fluttering gesture with the hand not holding the notebook. She said, ‘I don’t think I can quite do this, I can’t manage—’ She stopped, and put her hand over her mouth.
    Tamsin jumped up.
    ‘Mum—’
    ‘I’m OK,’ Chrissie said. ‘Really I am. I’m fine. But I know you’re right. I know we should tell Margaret—’
    ‘And Scott,’ Amy said.
    Chrissie glanced at her.
    ‘Of course. Scott. I forgot him, I forgot—’
    Tamsin moved to put her arms round her mother.
    ‘Damn,’ Chrissie whispered against Tamsin. ‘Damn. I don’t—’
    ‘You don’t have to,’ Tamsin said.
    ‘I do. I do. I do have to tell Margaret and Scott that Dad has died.’
    Nobody said anything. Dilly got up and collected the mugs on the table and put them in the dishwasher. Then she swept the biscuit crumbs and bits into her hand and put them in the bin, and the remaining packet in the cupboard. They watched her, all of them. They were used to watching Dilly, so orderly in her person and her habits, so chaotic in her reactions and responses. They waited while she found a cloth, wiped the table with it, rinsed it and hung it, neatly folded, over the mixer tap on the sink.
    Chrissie said absently, approvingly, ‘Thank you, darling.’
    Dilly said furiously, ‘It doesn’t matter if bloody Margaret knows!’
    Chrissie sighed. She withdrew a little from Tamsin.
    ‘It does matter.’
    ‘Dad wouldn’t want it!’
    ‘He would.’
    ‘Well, do it then!’ Dilly shouted.
    Chrissie gave a little shiver.
    ‘I’d give anything—’
    ‘I’ll stand beside you,’ Tamsin said, ‘while you ring.’
    Chrissie gave her a small smile.
    ‘Thank you—’
    ‘Mum?’
    Chrissie turned. Amy was leaning against the cupboard where the biscuits lived. She had her arms folded.
    ‘Yes, darling.’
    ‘I’ll do it.’
    ‘What—’
    ‘I’ll ring her,’ Amy said. ‘I’ll ring Margaret.’
    Chrissie put her arms out.
    ‘You’re lovely. You’re a doll. But you don’t have to, you don’t know her—’
    Amy shifted slightly.
    ‘Makes it easier then, doesn’t it?’
    ‘But—’
    ‘Look,’ Amy said, ‘I don’t mind phones. I’m not scared of phones, me. I’ll just dial her number and tell her who I am and what’s happened and then I’ll say goodbye.’
    ‘What if she wants to come to the funeral?’ Dilly said. ‘What if she wants to come and make out he was—’
    ‘Shut up,’ Tamsin said.
    She looked at her mother.
    ‘Let her,’ Tamsin said. ‘Let her ring.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Yes,’ Tamsin said. ‘Let her do it like she said and then it’ll be done. Two minutes and it’ll be done.’
    ‘And then? ’
    ‘There won’t be an “and then”.’
    Amy peeled herself off the cupboard and stood up. She looked as she looked, Chrissie remembered, when she learned to dive, standing on the end of the springboard, full of excited, anxious tension. She winked at her mother, and she actually smiled.
    ‘Watch me,’ Amy said.

CHAPTER TWO
    M ore than six decades of living by the sea had trained Margaret to know what the weather was doing, each morning, before she even drew back the curtains. Sometimes there was the subdued roaring that indicated wind and rain; sometimes there was a scattering of little sequins of light reflected across the ceiling from bright air and water, and sometimes there was the muffled stillness that meant fog.
    There was fog today. When she looked out, she would see that the sea mist had rolled up the shallow cliffs, and filled the wide grassy oval in front of the crescent of houses in Percy Gardens, bumping itself softly against the buildings. There would be shreds and wisps of mist caught in the fancy ironwork of the narrow balcony outside her bedroom window, and in the crooked cherry tree in the front garden. There would be salty smears on the window glass and the cars parked along the crescent and on