Conor smiled ruefully. ‘C’mon. I’m not your careers advisor today. I’m your driving instructor. Got the keys?’
‘Yep.’
‘Then get Gracie here back in her basket, and let’s get going.’
They kangaroo-hopped down Rembrandt Close and turned without signalling into Canaletto Way.
‘Slower. That’s the way.’ Conor steadied the Audi with a gentle hand on the wheel.
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry – it’s your first time, after all. Turn here – mirror, signal.’
As she rolled the wheel through her hands Ella started to say, ‘It’s not my first…’ but then she stopped, and bit her lip.
Conor had a go at playing the easygoing dad. ‘It’s okay,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Kieran take you out for a lesson?’
Ella frowned at the road ahead. ‘Not Kieran.’ An anxious sidelong glance. ‘Simon.’
‘Oh.’ Simon – five-languages Simon, university lecturer Simon – Simon, the new man in Christine’s life.
‘He just showed me how to start the car, and we just drove round.’
With a smile and a calmness he didn’t feel Conor reached over and squeezed Ella’s shoulder. ‘It’s fine. It’s good that you get on. Brake. Down to first. Off you go. I’m glad he’s able to help.’ He settled back in his seat. For a minute he watched the road in silence. Then he said, ‘Did he have fun?’
‘When I turned right onto the Stubbs Street roundabout I thought he was going to piss himself.’
Conor laughed. He knew Ella was only saying it to make him feel better. He didn’t care. It did make him feel better. Now they’d broached the subject, Ella started to talk more freely. Her mum hadn’t been seeing Simon for all that long, she said – Simon was all right; she really didn’t know him that well.
‘Well, as long as your mum’s happy.’
‘I wouldn’t say she’s happy exactly.’ The Audi turned a corner, bumped a kerb. ‘She’s always – well, she’s very tired from her work. Stressed.’
Conor nodded. ‘I know how that can be,’ he said.
Ella drove on. After a while – after a few narrow scrapes past parked cars, a few daring dashes through gaps in traffic that barely left the wing-mirrors with an inch to spare – she said: ‘Stop doing that.’
‘What?’
‘That thing. With your foot. Every time I do anything your right foot jerks like you’re slamming on a brake pedal. I can see it out of the corner of my eye. It’s making me nervous.’
Conor smiled. He hadn’t even known he was doing it. ‘I’m sorry. You’re doing great.’
‘I haven’t even hit anyone yet…’
‘True, true. But is that only because the kerbs keep getting in the way?’
‘If you don’t shut up I’ll drive us into the river.’
‘You wouldn’t…’ he began – then broke off suddenly. A black car in the rearview – that was what it was.
Ella sighed and slapped one hand on the wheel. ‘God, Dad, what is it now?’
‘Right here,’ he said sharply, pointing at a turning that led back into the estate. Ella indicated, braked – they had to wait for three oncoming cars to pass before they could make the turn. The black car followed. That damn woman. Didn’t she ever let up?
‘You okay, Dad?’
Conor forced a grin. ‘Yeah, of course. Sure. You know I love white-knuckle rides. Left here – then a right. Ah, that’s only an amber – go straight on.’
It isn’t sacred ground, for Christ’s sake, a part of him insisted. It’s a residential estate in Sydenham. And Galloway can go where she likes – she’s the law.
He found himself holding his breath as Ella rounded a bend and the poplars at the end of Rembrandt Close came into view. In the rearview, the black car followed – then slowed, and turned, jerked through a hasty three-point-turn – even the car looked somehow angry – and drove away.
Conor breathed out heavily as Ella drew up outside number eight, mounted the kerb, ran over a tub of geraniums, and stalled. There was a moment’s silence.
‘So?’ Ella said, throwing up her hands.
‘Mm?’
‘Did I pass?’
Conor smiled.
‘One or two minor faults,’ he shrugged, opening the door, ‘but I think we’ll get there in the end.’
Christine was in the kitchen when Conor followed Ella inside. She was sitting at the pine table, sifting through some students’ papers. She didn’t look up. Conor paused uncertainly in the hall. The wallpaper was the same, the carpet was the same. But something was different. More flowers, in more vases, for one thing – and fewer pairs of boots and grubby running shoes cluttering up the floor. No jackets slung over the banister.
‘Coffee, right, Dad? Two sugars?’
Ella was already breezily taking down coffee cups from the cupboard, filling the kettle, rattling in the cutlery drawer for a teaspoon.
Christine finally noticed her ex-husband hovering in the doorway. She smiled – a tired smile, but it’d do for Conor.
‘Hello, Con,’ Christine said – a little warily, it seemed.
‘Hi.’
He moved into the kitchen and leaned with an elbow on the worktop, then thought that might be presumptuous and straightened again. Christine went back to sorting her papers. She taught English to immigrant workers at a college out on Limerick Road – Conor guessed that was how she’d met Simon.
‘How’s work?’ he tried.
Christine sat back in her chair and blew out a breath. With a smile she gestured at the spread papers and said, ‘Never-ending.’
‘She works too hard.’ Ella set down one cup of coffee on the table at Christine’s elbow and another – Conor’s – just opposite. His old place at the table. Ella did it like it meant nothing, but from the way her glance flickered from her mother to her father it was obvious it meant more to her than that.
Conor, taking the chair Ella indicated, hoped it didn’t mean too much. They’d hurt Ella once – that is, he had.
Ella’s mobile buzzed. ‘Oop!’ She checked the screen and her eyes widened. You little actress, Conor thought wryly. ‘Kieran! Oh, gosh, I promised I’d ring him. Sorry – got to go. Thanks for the lesson, Dad.’ She pecked his cheek. ‘See you soon.’
‘S’long, sweetheart.’
The kitchen door banged behind her. Conor, shifting uncomfortably in his chair, said, ‘I’ll finish my coffee and be off. I can see you’re busy.’
‘God, I’m always busy,’ Christine smiled. She rolled back the sleeves of her faded blue sweatshirt and stretched her arms wearily. ‘A coffee-break won’t hurt.’
‘Was Ella right? Have you been overdoing it?’
‘Someone has to do the work.’
The language school, she said, was a madhouse – ‘everything done on the hoof, everything improvised, nothing planned’. Every day was like turning up knowing you’ve got to go up on stage, but there’s no script, and you don’t know who you’ll be acting with, or who’ll be in the audience, or whether there’ll