I am not in the mood for her amateur dramatics, her sighing and hair tossing. 'I had my reasons,' I say. 'I told you that. I'm sorry if you feel left out.'

She pauses. 'Well,' she says, sounding slightly flattened. 'Anyway - oh, darling. I don't know what to say.'

There's a silence. I don't know what to say either. We can't help each other, my mother and I, we never have been able to. The ties that bind us together are so tight there's no room for friendship. We've put up with the cold, with crappy one-bed flats, with creepy landlords and no money, too-small winter coats, meal after meal of pasta or baked beans, watching a tiny TV with a coat-hanger aerial, and spending night after night in each other's company, always making out to our family and friends that the life we lived was bohemian, carefree, simple and all the more tasty as a result. We don't run towards each other's company now. We don't really have anything in common, now we're both adults. Whoever my father is, he and I must be pretty alike. I often think we'd probably get on like a house on fire. My mother and I haven't really had that luxury. Instead we've tried to respect each other, and we don't go into any more of it than that.

Now, everything has changed, and I don't know what we do. Perhaps she's trying to be a good mother. And I don't believe Octavia, I don't believe my mother is responsible for Cecily's death. But then I'm beginning to realise I don't know anything.

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'Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you,' I say.

She sighs. 'It's fine, honestly, darling. I know it's been a hard time for you.'

It's very odd, hearing her voice. 'Well, it has for you, too, Mum,' I say. 'Granny's only just died.'

'I know.' She sighs again. 'A lifetime and a week, a week and a lifetime.'

'What?'

My mother gives a small laugh. 'Nothing. I'm feeling a bit mad at the moment. Being with one's family will do that to one, won't it?'

'Oh, yes,' I say. 'It's just hard, packing away the house, knowing we're leaving it empty, leaving all these memories behind.' She sounds tired. 'All these lovely pieces in the house, and I don't know what to do with them - whether Archie's right about it all. I'm sure he is, but - well, there's Louisa.' Her voice hardens again. 'Bossing us around.'

'You should talk to . . . I don't know, someone who knows a bit about that stuff.' I remember back to that scene in the kitchen. 'Guy, perhaps.'

'Guy Leighton?' Mum stops me. 'No. I don't like Guy.'

I remember how angry she was with him in the kitchen, just before I left last night. Only twenty-four hours ago. 'Why not? He seemed quite nice. As if he knew what he was talking about.'

'Well, he's not nice,' Mum says. 'He makes out he's nice as pie, all sticky-up hair and glasses. He's worse than the rest of them. No, I'm not having anything to do with him.'

'But don't you have to, if Granny asked him to be on the committee?' I ask.

She clears her throat. 'Believe me, Natasha,' she says. 'Guy Leighton is not what he seems. Just steer clear of him, if you can.'

'What?' I say. 'What does that mean?' I wind a strand of hair tighter and tighter around my finger. 'What's he done?'

She seems to hesitate. 'Well. He was a complicated fellow.'

'Yes?' I say expectantly. 'And?'

There's a silence. It's so long that after about ten seconds I think she must have been disconnected, and I say, 'Mum? Are you still there? What did he do?'

'Oh.' And then she sighs. 'Perhaps I'm being unfair. I haven't seen him for years and years. It's a long time ago. Forget it!' She trails off. 'I'd just rather do it at my own pace, and Archie agrees. Jesus.' She breaks off, and suddenly says, 'By the way, did Arvind give you anything? Yesterday?'

'Oh,' I say. 'Yes . . . Sorry. He gave me a ring.'

The instant I say it I know I shouldn't have. I know it's a mistake.

'A ring?' Mum says instantly. 'What ring? Arvind gave you a ring?'

'Yes, Granny's ring, the one with the flowers.' I hear her inhale sharply. 'Sorry, Mum, I didn't think to tell you.'

'Well, I wish you had.' She sounds really cross, agitated even. 'We've been looking through Granny's things today, and I couldn't find it.' She hesitates. 'Nothing else? He didn't give you anything

else?'

I take a deep breath and lie. 'No. Nothing.'

I am wary of her now. I know what she can be like. And I feel, all of a sudden, as if we are playing a new game, one we've never played before.

'It would have been good if you'd told me, Natasha.'

'I didn't realise,' I say, nettled. 'I didn't think it was your ring to give away. Of course, if you want it, I don't want—' It's still round my neck and as I touch it I know suddenly I absolutely won't give it to

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her. I know Arvind didn't want Mum or Archie to have it, though I don't know why. 'It was in Granny's bedside table,' I say. 'He said Cecily wore it. On a chain.'

Her sister's name feels like a heavy stone dropped into the sentence.

'She did wear it, I'd forgotten,' Mum says. 'Mummy said she could borrow it. She took it to school but then she lost it. We couldn't tell Mummy, she'd have been so cross. Cecily was distraught, I've never seen her so upset. We looked absolutely everywhere. It was a freezing cold winter, the coldest on record, that winter before . . . she died.' She clears her throat. 'And do you know where we found it?'

'No, where?' I say. The steam from the kettle is fugging up the kitchen window. I take a mug off a hook and put a teabag in it.

'The pipes froze solid and the sink fell off the wall in her dorm.' Mum laughs softly. 'When they took the sink away it slid out. She'd dropped it down the plughole and it was frozen in water. Like a stick of rock, with a gold ring in the middle.'

'No way.' That ring, the one round my neck. I smile. Mum gives a gurgle of laughter. 'It's true! But that was Cecily. Oh, she was funny. Such a drama queen. They all said I was - hah, she was! Such a prima donna. She swore she'd never take it off again. So she wore it round her neck on a chain. And then Mummy found out, and made her give it back. She was absolutely furious.' She stops. There is a silence, and I hear a funny sound and realise she's crying.

'Oh, Mum,' I say, instantly feeling guilty for taking her on this path, even if she was going there herself. 'I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to make you cry—'

'No, no,' Mum says. Her voice is really wobbly, as though it's been put through a distorter. 'No! Oh, Jesus. I never talk about her, that's all. It's only . . . She was so young. It's hard now . . . when I think about then . . . and now. I wasn't very nice to her. I wish I could take it all back.'

'Oh, Mum, that's not true,' I say. 'You don't know,' Mum says quietly. 'I keep thinking about her, you know. Especially lately, with Mummy's death. I wonder what she would have been like now. She'd be middle-aged, not a girl any more. She really was lovely . . .' And then she makes a strange sound, half sob, half moan. 'Oh, God,' she says. 'Cecily. No. Let's talk about something else. It upsets me too much.'

'Was it really the coldest winter on record?' I say, after a quick think. I make the tea, wrapping my fingers round the thick mug for warmth, and go into the sitting room.

'The winter of '62, '63?' Mum sniffs loudly. 'Oh, yes, darling. It snowed from December to March, Natasha. Two feet of snow outside. Three feet! There was no gas, no heating. We had to burn old desks at school, because we ran out of wood. We were snowed in for about a week.'

'Wow,' I say, sitting down on the slithery leather sofa. 'A whole week?'

'I'm serious,' Mum said. 'We were all so cold, all the time. And I remember - gosh, it's all coming back now—' She trails off.

'What?' I say, intrigued, tucking my feet underneath me. I adjust the phone, hugging a cushion to keep me warm. The huge sitting room is always chilly.

'Our headmistress,' Mum says. 'Stupid bloody bitch. Do you know what she said to me and Cecily? In front of the whole school, at assembly?'

'No, what?'

Mum recites, as though it's a lesson. '"Girls like you withdarker skins will feel the cold more than the English girls."'

I'm so shocked I don't know what to say. 'Really?'

'I hated that school, hated it. I was useless. They hated me, too. You know, one of the mistresses at school, she made me wash my mouth out with bleach. Made me scrub my skin with it, too. Said it'd

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lighten my dark hair.' 'No, Mum.'

Mum is such a drama queen, but for some reason I believe her. 'It's actually true. Hah.' 'What happened?'

'I'd finally had enough when that happened.' Her voice is dreamy, as though she's telling a fairy story. 'I went to ring up Mummy that evening in floods of tears, to tell her to take us away. But the phone lines were down,' Mum says flatly. 'And I had to stay anyway. There wasn't anywhere else for me to go. When I did finally get through to Mummy, she wasn't pleased. Said she didn't know why I always had to mess things up, that I deserved it. Oh, I behaved really badly that term. I nearly got expelled.

Awful.'

Yes, I want to say. I know all about what you did. About you and Annabel Taylor, about how you nearly killed her. A shiver runs through me. I don't know whether to be proud of her for her bravery, or afraid. My God. I realise I don't know her at all.

Mum says, 'Then we got home for the summer, and . . .' There's a silence. 'And what?'

'Well, that was the summer she died,' Mum says. 'August 1963.'

'Oh. Of course. I'm sorry,' I say. 'So—'

'Natasha?'