that way he had when he thought someone was deliberately making him look a fool, as though he was considering violence. But the look passed quickly and I saw him push through it with a smile. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course. That’s the modern way, isn’t it?’
Birdie had told my mother that she and her partner needed somewhere to stay for a few days. Their landlord had kicked them out because they’d got a cat – what sort of idiot gets a cat without checking the terms of their lease? I was not even eleven years old and had never lived in a rental and I knew that much – and Birdie hadn’t known whom else to turn to. As an adult man now of forty-one years old I have often used this refrain to get people to do what I want them to do. I didn’t know who else to turn to. It gives the person you’re trying to manipulate nowhere to go. Their only option is to capitulate. Which is exactly what my mother had done.
‘But we have so many rooms,’ she’d said when I complained about the upcoming arrangement. ‘And it’s only for a few days.’
My mother, in my opinion, just wanted a pop star living in her house.
My sister passed me on the stairs and stopped with a small intake of breath when she saw the cat basket in the hall. ‘What’s it called?’ she said, dropping to her knees to peer through the grille.
‘It’s a girl. She’s called Suki,’ said Birdie.
‘Suki,’ she said, tucking the knuckles of her fingers between the bars. The cat pushed itself against her hand and purred loudly.
The man called Justin picked up his stage prop suitcase and said, ‘Where shall we put our things, Martina?’
‘We’ve got a lovely room for you at the top of the house. Children, show our guests to the yellow room, will you?’
My sister led the way. She was by far the more gregarious of the two of us. I found grown-ups relatively terrifying whereas she seemed to quite like them. She was wearing green pyjamas. I was wearing a tartan dressing gown and blue felt slippers. It was nearly nine and we’d been on a countdown to bedtime.
‘Oh,’ said Birdie as my sister pushed open the hidden door in the wood panelling that led to the stairs to the top floor. ‘Where on earth are you taking us?’
‘It’s the back stairs,’ my sister said. ‘To the yellow room.’
‘You mean the servants’ entrance?’ Birdie replied sniffily.
‘Yes,’ my sister replied brightly because although she was only a year and a half younger than me she was too young to understand that not everyone thought sleeping in secret rooms at the top of secret staircases was an adventure; that some people might think they deserved proper big bedrooms and would be offended.
At the top of the secret staircase there was a wooden door leading to a long thin corridor where the walls were sort of wonky and lumpy and the floorboards warped and bouncy and it felt a bit like walking along a moving train. The yellow room was the nicest of the four up there. It had three windows in the ceiling and a big bed with a yellow duvet cover to match the yellow Laura Ashley wallpaper and modern table lamps with blue glass shades. Our mother had arranged yellow and red tulips in a vase. I watched Birdie’s face as she took it all in, a sort of grudging tilt of her chin as if it to say: I suppose it will do.
We left them there, and I followed behind my sister as she skipped down the stairs, through the drawing room and into the kitchen.
Dad was uncorking wine. Mum was wearing her frilled apron and tossing a salad. ‘How long are those people staying for?’ I couldn’t help blurting out. I saw a shadow pass across my father’s face at the note of impudence I’d failed to mask.
‘Oh. Not for long.’ My mother pushed the cork back into a bottle of red wine vinegar and placed it to one side, smiling benignly.
‘Can we stay up?’ my sister asked, not looking at the bigger picture, not looking beyond the nose on her face.
‘Not tonight,’ my mother replied. ‘Tomorrow maybe, when it’s the weekend.’
‘And then, will they go?’ I asked, very gently nudging the line between me and my father’s patience with me. ‘After the weekend?’
I turned then as I sensed my mother’s gaze drift across