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ground if it wasn’t listed.’
    There’s a few seconds of silence. Then the cooking timer goes off, bleeping urgently into the pause as if it’s been waiting for the right moment. Dad opens his mouth and goes back into the kitchen without saying anything.
    â€˜Oh,’ Mum says.
    Sam says, ‘Because your grandfather died there?’
    â€˜No, because I –’ He stops. He picks up his wine glass again and takes two sips in rapid succession, wiping his mouth with his other hand. His fingers are shaking very slightly. I remember, all of a sudden, the way his arm felt against mine when he was pushing me. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘That’s right.’
    I say, ‘You can’t sell it.’ The words arrive in my mouth without my knowing how they got there.
    He looks up sharply. He’s got hazel eyes and tiny creases under his lower lashes. Somehow the fact that he’s good-looking makes me angrier. He says, ‘Why not?’
    â€˜Because –’ I glare at him. He stares back at me, raising his eyebrows. ‘Because – you can’t . Someone’ll buy it and turn it into flats for commuters. It’ll be shit. How could you do that?’
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ Mum says. ‘It must be a difficult –’
    â€˜Excuse me,’ he says. He stands up, very quickly, and his chair scrapes loudly over the floor. ‘No, I ’m sorry. I don’t think I want dinner. The jet lag –’
    And then he’s gone, nearly tripping over the rug. I catch sight of his hand on the door frame as he steadies himself. It’s an odd, pale, yellowy colour: like ivory, or something very old.
    He doesn’t come back.
    .
    The fight goes on far longer than it should. It starts off reasonable, almost gentle , with Mum asking me what the matter is. We sit and talk very quietly – because after all Oliver is in the guest room and the walls aren’t that thick – about how rude I am, and how this is a business, and how being childish and obnoxious doesn’t make anyone feel more sympathetic, and I can’t possibly be really unhappy, it’s just a phase everyone goes through, and maybe I should get a summer job so I have something to take my mind off it. By that stage we’re shouting. Dad tells me I’m self-absorbed and selfish and self-dramatising and everything else that begins with self . Mum says, ‘Bibi, we only want you to be happy, but I think your father’s right,’ and then winces, like she’s just stubbed her toe on something. I make her wait for it. Then I open my mouth and say, very clearly and slowly, ‘He’s not my father . And you’re not my –’ Out of the corner of my eye I see Sam mouthing the same thing, like he’s lip-synching to a film he’s seen hundreds of times.
    I storm out. I slam my bedroom door and lean a chair against it – that’s more symbolic than anything, because it wouldn’t stop anyone getting in if they really wanted to – and pummel my pillow until I feel a bit calmer. Then I get my special box out from under my bed and spread everything out on my duvet. I curl up in the middle of it and hold my favourite photo a few centimetres away from my nose, so it dissolves into a warm blur of ochre and brown. I stay very still. I shut my eyes and pretend I’m somewhere else. I get pins and needles in my hand from holding the photo too tightly.
    I can’t sleep. I hear Sam doing his teeth next door, and then the TV goes on and then off again, and the taps run and the toilet flushes until it’s nearly midnight, and everyone else has gone to bed.
    Finally I get up – carefully, so I don’t crease any of my bits of paper – and turn the light off. I stand there in the dark. I feel better now that no one else is awake.
    The rain’s stopped, and I open my window to get some fresh air. It’s warm and I can smell the