Unnerved, she sent to James:Me 2. And turned to applying her talents to dressing his daughter in something more flattering than shapeless T-shirts and old oversized jeans.
Rewardingly, Tamzin looked like a model in the creamy top with the brassy gauze. Diane saw her looking at George for approval and ached. She wanted to warn, ‘Don’t, Tamzin! Don’t expose your fragile heart. George is a good boy but he’s … aboy. He doesn’t think in the long-term or that you might fall to bits when it ends.’ But, of course, she just smiled auntishly. And she crossed her mental fingers really hard.
Tamzin’s eyes were shining. ‘It doesn’t need any alteration, does it, Diane? It doesn’t. It’s so cool, I want to take it home.’
‘Cool,’ George agreed.
Diane walked around her, critically. ‘What do you think about the length?’
‘Great.’
‘And the sleeves?’
‘Excellent.’ Tamzin put her arms out at her side like a scarecrow.
George blew her a kiss. ‘You look amazin’.’
Immediately, Tamzin declared the top to be perfect and rushed off to the bathroom to change to the pink one. When she reappeared, she was beaming at how the beautiful, delicate colour lent its blush to her skin. George ran his fingers over the clear washers and black embroidery. ‘You design cool stuff, Diane. When the band’s famous I’m going to get you to do all my stage stuff. Tamz just looks really wicked.’ He gave Tamzin a hug.
… Just as Bryony bounced through the door in pink shortie pyjamas. ‘George,I heard you – Oh. Who are you?’
Diane’s heart sank as, looking about ten, curls on end and a thunderous scowl on her sleepy face, Bryony glared at Tamzin.
The warming tone of the blouse couldn’t disguise Tamzin’s sudden pallor.
George looked at Bryony as if trying to remember who she was. ‘Wow,’ he said, at last. ‘Hey, Bryony. Great to see you.’ He let go of Tamzin long enough to stoop to kiss his cousin’s cheek. ‘Wow, can’t believe you’re home. Diane said, like, you’d be asleep until this afternoon.’
‘I heard your voice.’ Bryony’s dark gaze flipped from George to Tamzin.
‘Oh, right, sorry. Diane kept telling us to be quiet but I forgot.’ George laughed. ‘This is Tamzin, by the way. She’s your half-cousin, same as I’m your half-cousin.’
With a frozen smile, Bryony said, ‘Hello, Tamzin.’
With an uncertain pucker between her eyes, Tamzin returned, ‘Hello, Bryony.’
They stared at each other until Bryony said, abruptly, ‘I met Granddad, yesterday.’
Tamzin nodded, slowly. ‘The rest of us call him Pops.’
‘Shall we get on?’ Diane pulled her tape measure from around her neck. ‘George has to get off to uni after Tamzin’s fitting. There’s plenty in the fridge if you’re hungry, Bryony.’
Bryony shrugged. ‘I think I’ll go back to bed now I’ve said hi to George. You’re all obviously … busy.’ She turned on her heel and stalked from the room.
‘Right, Tamzin,’ said Diane, ignoring both Tamzin’s uneasy expression and Bryony’s less-than-perfect manners. ‘I’ve decorated the first two pairs of jeans. Hop into a pair and we’ll see how you look.’
Diane waited until she’d seen Tamzin and George off and then made two cups of tea and a couple of slices of toast to carry upstairs to the room at the front of the house where her daughter had slept since she was a few weeks old. Knocking, she walked in. The curtains were closed and the room thick with the mustiness of sleep. Bryony was a shape beneath the quilt. ‘I’ve brought your breakfast.’ She didn’t insult Bryony’s intelligence by pretending she thought Bryony might be asleep.
Slowly Bryony stirred. ‘You shouldn’t have.’ Her voice was dull.
‘It’s been ages since you ate.’ She waited while Bryony hauled herself up, propping her pillows between herself and the pink-buttoned headboard, then deposited a mug on the bedside and passed over the plate of buttery toast before opening the curtains and a small window.
Bryony regarded her toast with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. A blue inhaler lay on the bedside table and she took two puffs from that instead. Bryony would always have an inhaler and use it several times a day.
Diane was just grateful that modern drugs let her lead a normal life with so little intervention and pushed away the memory of the years of Bryony’s childhood, when that certainly hadn’t been the case.
She parked herself on the foot of the bed and blew across the surface of her tea to cool it. ‘Is it very odd?’
‘What?’
