She just ... she feels like my family. It doesn't feel weird. I thought it would, but it doesn't. Hey, Lou ...'

She hugged me, exuberantly. 'You'll still be my friend. You're basically the sister I never had.'

I hugged her back and tried to keep the smile on my face.

'Anyway. You need your privacy.' She disentangled herself and pulled a piece of gum from her mouth, folding it carefully into a torn piece of paper. 'Having to listen to you and Hot Ambulance Man s.h.a.gging across the corridor was actually pretty gross.'

Lily is going.

Going where?To live with her grandmother . I feel strange. She' s so happy about it. Sorry. I don' t mean to talk about Will-related things all the time, but I can' t really talk to anyone else.

Lily packed her bag, cheerfully stripping my second bedroom of nearly every sign she had ever been there, apart from the Kandinsky print and the camp bed, a pile of glossy magazines and an empty deodorant canister. I dropped her at the station, listening to her non-stop chatter and trying not to look as unbalanced as I felt. Camilla Traynor would be waiting at the other end.

'You should come up. We've got my room really nice. There's a horse next door that the farmer across the way says I can ride. Oh, and there's quite a nice pub.'

She glanced up at the departures board, and bounced on her toes, suddenly seeing the time. 'b.u.g.g.e.r. My train. Right. Where's platform eleven?' She began to run briskly through the crowd, her holdall slung over her shoulder, her legs long in black tights. I stood, frozen, watching her go. Her stride had grown longer.

Suddenly she turned and, spotting me by the entrance, waved, her smile wide, her hair flying up around her face. 'Hey, Lou!' she yelled. 'I meant to say to you. Moving on doesn't mean you loved my dad any less, you know. I'm pretty sure even he would tell you that.'

And then she was gone, swallowed by the crowd.

Her smile was like his.

She was never yours, Lou.

I know. It' s I suppose she was the thing I felt was giving me a purpose.

Only one person can give you a purpose.

I let myself absorb these words for a minute.

Can we meet? Please?

I'm on shift tonight.

Come to mine after?

Maybe later in the week. I'll call you.

It was the 'maybe' that did it. There was something final in it, the slow closing of a door. I stared at my phone as the commuters swarmed around me and something in me shifted too. Either I could go home and mourn yet another thing I had lost, or I could embrace an unexpected freedom. It was as if a light had gone on: the only way to avoid being left behind was to start moving.

I went home, made myself a coffee and stared at the green wall. Then I pulled out my laptop.

Dear Mr Gopnik, My name is Louisa Clark and last month you were kind enough to offer me a job, which I had to turn down. I appreciate that you wi l l have fi l led your posi tion by now, but if I don't say this I wi l l regret i t for ever.

I real ly wanted your job. If the chi ld of my former employer hadn't turned up in trouble, I would have taken i t l ike a shot. I do not want to blame her for my decision, as i t was a privi lege to help sort things out for her. But I just wanted to say that if you ever need someone again I real ly hope you might consider getting in touch.

I know you are a busy man so I won't go on, but I just needed you to know.

Wi th best wishes Louisa Clark I wasn't sure what I was doing but at least I was doing something. I pressed send, and with that tiny action, I was suddenly filled with purpose. I raced into the bathroom and ran the shower, stripping off my clothes and tripping on my trouser legs in my hurry to get out of them and under the hot water. I began to lather my hair, already planning ahead. I was going to go to the ambulance station, and I was going to find Sam and I was The doorbell rang. I swore and grabbed a towel.

'I've had it,' my mother said.

It took me a moment to register that it was actually her standing there, holding an overnight bag. I pulled my towel around me, my hair dripping onto the carpet. 'Had what?'

She stepped in, closing the front door behind her. 'Your father. Grumbling incessantly at me about everything I do. Acting as if I'm some kind of harlot just for wanting a little time to myself. So I told him I was coming here for a little break.'

'A break?'

'Louisa, you have no idea. All the mumping and grumping. I can't stay set in stone, you know?

Everyone else gets to change. Why can't I?'

It was as if I'd come halfway into a conversation that had been going on for an hour. Possibly in a bar.

After hours.

'When I started that feminist consciousness course, I thought a fair bit of it was exaggerated. Man's patriarchal control of woman? Even the unconscious kind? Well, they only had the half of it. Your father simply can't see me as a person beyond what I put on the table or put out in bed.'

'Uh '

'Oh. Too much?'

'Possibly.'

'Let's discuss it over some tea.' My mother walked past me and into the kitchen. 'Well, this looks a bit better. I'm still not sure about that green, though. It washes you right out. Now, where are your teabags?'

My mother sat on the sofa and, as her tea grew cold, I listened to her litany of frustration and tried not to think about the time. Sam would be arriving for his shift in half an hour. It would take twenty minutes to get over to the ambulance station. And then my mother's voice would lift and her hands would end up somewhere around her ears and I knew I was going nowhere.

'Do you know how stifling it is to be told you're never going to be able to change? For the rest of your life? Because n.o.body else wants you to? Do you know how awful it is to feel stuck?'

I nodded vigorously. I did. I really did. 'I'm sure Dad doesn't mean for you to feel like that but listen, I '.

'I even suggested he take a course at the night school. Something he might like you know, repairing antiques or life drawing or something. I don't mind him looking at the nudies! I thought we could grow together! That's the kind of wife I'm trying to be, the kind that doesn't even mind her husband looking at nudies, if it's in the name of culture ... But he's all "What would I want to go down there for?" It's like he's got the ruddy menopause. And as for the rabbiting on about me not shaving my legs! Oh, my days.

He's so hypocritical. Do you know how long the hairs in his nostrils are, Louisa?'

'N-no.'

'I'll tell you! He could wipe his plate with them. For the last fifteen years, I've been the one telling the barber to give him a trim up there, you know? Like he's some kind of child. Do I mind? No! Because that's the way he is. He's a human being! Nose hair and all! But if I dare not to be as smooth as a ruddy baby's bottom he acts like I've turned into flipping Chewbacca!'It was ten minutes to six. Sam would be heading out at half past. I sighed, and pulled my towel around me.

'So ... um ... how long do you think you'll be here?'

'Well, now, I don't know.' Mum took a sip of her tea. 'We've got the social services bringing Granddad his lunch now so it's not like I've got to be there all the time. I might just stay for a few days. We had a lovely time last time I was here, didn't we? We could go and see Maria in the toilets tomorrow. Wouldn't that be nice!'

'Lovely.'

'Right. Well, I'll make up the spare bed. Where is the spare bed?'

We had just stood up when the buzzer went again. I opened the door, expecting a random pizza delivery, but there stood Treena and Thom and, behind them, his hands jammed into his trouser pockets like a recalcitrant teenager, my father.

She didn't even look at me. She just walked in past me. 'Mum. This is ridiculous. You can't just run away from Dad. How old are you? Fourteen?'

'I am not running away, Treena. I am giving myself breathing s.p.a.ce.'

'Well, we're going to sit here until you two have sorted this ridiculous thing out. You know he's been sleeping in his van, Lou?'

'What? You didn't tell me that.' I turned to Mum.

She lifted her chin. 'You didn't give me a chance, with all your talking.'

Mum and Dad stood there not looking at each other.

'I have nothing to say to your father right now,' Mum said.

'Sit down,' said Treena. 'The both of you.' They shuffled towards the sofa, casting mute glances of resentment at each other. She turned to me. 'Right. Let's make tea. And then we're going to sort this out as a family.'

'Great idea!' I said, sensing my chance. 'There's milk in the fridge. Tea's on the side. Help yourselves.

I've got to pop out for half an hour.' And before anyone could stop me I had whipped on a pair of jeans and a top and was running out of the flat with my car keys.

I saw him even as I turned the car into the ambulance-station car park. He was striding towards the ambulance, his pack slung over his shoulder, and something inside me lurched. I knew the delicious solidity of that body, the soft angles of that face. He turned and his step faltered, as if I had been the last thing he had expected to see. Then he turned back to the ambulance, hauling open the rear doors.

I walked towards him across the tarmac. 'Can we talk?'

He lifted an oxygen tank like it was a tin of hairspray, securing it in its holder. 'Sure. But it'll have to be some other time. I'm on my way out.'

'It won't wait.'

His expression didn't flicker. He stooped to pick up a pack of gauze.

'Look. I just wanted to explain ... what we were talking about. I do like you. I really like you. I just I'm just scared.'

'We're all scared, Lou.'

'You're not scared of anything.'

'Yeah. I am. Just not stuff you'd notice.'He stared at his boots. And then he saw Donna running towards him. 'Ah, h.e.l.l. I've got to go.'

I jumped into the rear of the ambulance. 'I'll come with you. I'll get a taxi home from wherever you're headed.'

'No.'

'Ah, come on. Please.'

'So I can get in even more trouble with Disciplinary?'

'Red Two, reports of a stabbing, young male.' Donna threw her pack into the back of the ambulance.

'We have to go, Louisa.'

I was losing him. I could feel it, in the tone of his voice, the way he wouldn't look at me directly. I climbed out of the back, cursing my lateness. But Donna took me by the elbow and steered me towards the front. 'For G.o.d's sake,' she said, as Sam made to protest. 'You've been like a bear with a sore head all week. Just sort this thing out. We'll drop her before we get there.'

Sam walked briskly around to the pa.s.senger door and opened it, casting a glance at the controller's office. 'She'd make a great relationship counsellor.' His voice hardened. 'If we were, you know, in a relationship.'

I didn't need telling twice. Sam climbed into the driving seat and looked at me as if he were going to say something, then changed his mind. Donna began sorting out equipment. He started the ignition and put the blue light on.

'Where are we headed?'

'We are headed to the estate. About seven minutes away with blues and twos. Y ou are headed to the high street, two minutes from Kingsbury.'

'So I've got five minutes?'

'And a long walk back.'

'Okay,' I said. And realized, as we sped forward, that I really had no idea what to say next.

CHAPTER TWENTY-S IX.

'So, here's the thing,' I said. Sam indicated and swung out onto the road. I had to shout as the siren was so loud.

His attention was on the road ahead. He glanced at the computer readout on the dashboard. 'What have we got, Don?'

'Possible stabbing. Two reports. Young male collapsed in stairwell.'

'Is this really a good time to talk?' I said.

'Depends what you want to say.'

'It's not that I don't want a relationship,' I said. 'I just still feel a bit mixed up.'

'Everyone's mixed up,' said Donna. 'Every bloke I go out with starts our date with how he's got trust issues.' She looked at Sam. 'Oh. Sorry. Don't mind me.'

Sam kept his eyes straight ahead. 'One minute you're calling me a d.i.c.k because you've decided I'm sleeping with other women. Next you're keeping me at arm's length because you're still attached to someone else. It's too '

'Will is gone. I know that. But I just can't leap in like you can, Sam. I feel like I'm only just getting back on my feet after a long time of ... I don't know ... I was a mess.'

'I know you were a mess. I picked up that mess.'

'If anything, I like you too much. I like you so much that if it went wrong it would feel like that again.

And I'm not sure I'm strong enough.'

'How is that going to happen?'