'OK, then?'

'About Newcastle?'

'Yes.'

Chrissie said reluctantly, 'I suppose so.'

'Good,' Amy said. She picked up her tea mug. 'Because I'm going, anyway.'

Sitting on the tube on the way back from college, Dilly read Craig's text probably twenty-five times.

'Sorry babe,' it started, and then, without any punctuation, it went on, 'sorry cant do friday sorry cant do have a nice life,' and two kisses. Of course she knew, at about the second reading, what he was trying to say, trying to tell her, but it wasn't until she read it ten more times, scrolling endlessly back to the beginning, that she allowed herself to realize that she was, unceremoniously, being dumped. That Craig, lazy, undependable, fanciable Craig, was taking the ultimately cowardly way out of an unwanted situation and was telling her that their relationship, as far as he was concerned, was over by text.

Once she had permitted full recognition of both his message and his conduct, Dilly waited to fall to pieces. After all, that is what she did when faced with something unwanted or unexpected, what she had always done, and even if this news was hardly unexpected, it was certainly not what she would have chosen. It was also outrageously humiliating. Dilly sat in her seat between a girl with her MP3 player plugged in and an old man in a fez reading an Arabic newspaper and waited for the full horror of what she had just read to sink right in and reduce her to tears. It didn't happen. She reread the text a few more times and waited a bit longer. Still, nothing happened. She glanced around her and saw that the world she would have a.s.sumed to look entirely distorted and unfamiliar through her own shock appeared perfectly normal. She looked down at her phone again. Perhaps she really was in shock, and in a few minutes or hours the reality of what had happened would kick in, and she could react as she usually did with all the attendant panic and sobbing.

She reached Archway station still in one piece, and got off the train. On the way up to the street, she found she had put her phone in her pocket, as if it was a perfectly ordinary day in which she had received perfectly ordinary messages. Once outside, she resisted buying a gossip magazine and a packet of M&Ms economy, economy and started to walk up the hill, past the hospital, past the entrance to Waterlow Park, where, on a bench soon after Richie died, Craig had presented her with a pretty but cheap bead bracelet, which was, she reflected, about the only thing he had ever given her, towards the estate agent's office where Tamsin worked.

It did not cross her mind that Tamsin might not be there and so she was not in the least surprised to find her behind the reception desk, hair in a neat knot behind her head, being busy in a way peculiar to herself. Dilly put her forearms on the high rim of the desk and leaned forward.

'Hi.'

Tamsin did not take off her telephone headphones. She flicked a glance sideways, towards the big modern clock on the wall.

'Not till half past five-'

Dilly took her phone out of her pocket and held it for Tamsin to see.

'Something to show you-'

'Not now.'

'Tam, it's important. It's Craig.'

Tamsin leaned forward.

'I don't care,' she said in a loud whisper, 'if it's Brad Pitt. I am not talking to you till half past five. Ten minutes. Go and sit down.'

Dilly sighed, and put the phone back in her pocket. She trailed across to a pair of red upholstered chairs by a gla.s.s table bearing brochures featuring photographs of houses with 'Sold! Sold!' excitably printed across them in scarlet. She sat down and looked about her. There were eight desks that she could see, two occupied, the rest suspiciously tidy. At one of the occupied desks, a young man in a sober suit and an exuberant tie was talking earnestly to a middle-aged couple, who looked as if they were having trouble believing anything he said. Every so often, they looked at each other, as if for rea.s.surance, and when they did that, the young man leaned a little bit further forward and redoubled his exertions. Dilly wondered if the couple were thinking of buying a house or trying to sell one, and then she thought how completely useless Craig would have been in any situation like that, which led to a renewal of her amazement that she hadn't yet wanted to cry. She looked at the clock. Eight minutes left to go. Perhaps when she showed Craig's text to Tamsin she'd want to cry then; perhaps that would be when reality kicked in.

The middle-aged couple got up. The young man rose too and held out his hand to shake theirs in a way that forced them to take it in turn, whatever their inclination. Still talking, he escorted them across the room to the door, and ushered them out. On his way back to his desk, he said loudly to Tamsin, as he pa.s.sed her, 'Waste of b.l.o.o.d.y time,' and Dilly heard her laugh. It was weird, hearing her laugh in a work situation. Or maybe it was just weird hearing her laugh at all. There hadn't been much laughing at home lately. Breda, from south of Dublin, on Dilly's course at college, said that there'd been so many jokes after her father died that they'd almost forgotten he wasn't there to share them. Dilly couldn't picture that. Richie had been the one for jokes in their house too many jokes, Chrissie sometimes said and when he died, the jokes seemed to die with him. Dilly had managed to laugh a bit with Craig when he fooled about, but that was relief mostly, relief at being with someone not connected to Richie's dying. Would it, she wondered, be a relief to cry now, or was it more of a relief not somehow seeming to want to?

At the two occupied desks, the computers were being shut down. Tamsin took her headphones off and began switching and stacking in a practised manner. A door to an office at the back opened to reveal a middle-aged man in rumpled shirtsleeves holding a mug in one hand and a mobile telephone to his ear with the other. He crossed the room, still talking into his phone, paused by the reception desk to bend and say something to Tamsin and put his mug down, and then he retreated to his office at the back and closed the door. Dilly got up and went over to her sister.

'Who was that?'

Tamsin said, with a hint of satisfaction, 'Mr Mundy.'

'Is he your boss?'

Tamsin looked round the room. The young man and a middle-aged woman from an adjoining desk were deep in conversation.

'Tell you later,' Tamsin said.

'What?'

'Shh,' Tamsin said. 'Good news.'

She stood up and smoothed her top down.

'I'll get my jacket.'

Out in the street, Dilly produced her phone again.

'Look at that!'

Tamsin stopped walking and took Dilly's phone.

'What's up?'

A woman banged into them from behind.

'Can't you look where you're b.l.o.o.d.y going?'

Tamsin took no notice. She stared at Dilly's phone for several seconds and then she said, 'What a complete jerk.'

'He's dumping me,' Dilly said. 'Isn't he?'

Tamsin nodded slowly. Then she glanced up at Dilly.

'You OK?'

'Well,' Dilly said, 'I seem to be. I don't get it, but I don't feel anything much yet.'

Tamsin gave a sniff.

'Of course, Robbie never liked him-'

'Dad did.'

'Dad liked anyone who was good company.'

She put an arm round Dilly.

'Poor babe. Poor you. You don't deserve this.'

Dilly said, her face awkwardly against her sister's, 'Should I do anything?'

'Heavens, no,' Tamsin said. 'Good riddance, I'd say. Don't you do a thing.' She took her face and arm away.

Dilly said, 'I don't even know if I'll miss him-'

'Good girl, Dill.'

'But I'll miss having a boyfriend.'

'There'll be others, Dill. There'll be real ones, like Robbie.'

Dilly gave her head a tiny toss.

'I don't want a boyfriend like Robbie.'

'Even when you're down,'

said sharply, 'you can be such a little cow.'

Dilly took her phone out of Tamsin's hand and began to walk away from her up the hill. Perhaps this was the time, the moment, for the tears to start. Perhaps now, with Tamsin's self-absorption making her such a very unsatisfactory confidante, the usual wave of self-pity would come sweeping in, and she could give in to it, give herself up to it, and arrive home in the state that would at least ensure Chrissie's full attention for a while. She tried visualizing her own situation, her humiliation, her looming loneliness, even the appalling prospect of inadvertently seeing Craig somewhere around, with someone else. She blinked. Her eyes were still dry.

Tamsin caught up with her.

'Dill-'

'What?'

'Sorry,' Tamsin said, 'this is so bad for you, so bad-'

'Yes,' Dilly said. They were negotiating the crossings at the top of Highgate village. 'Yes, it is.'

Tamsin took her arm.

'Will you tell Mum?'

Dilly was amazed.

'Of course!'

Tamsin held Dilly's arm a little tighter.

'I've got something to tell Mum too-'

Dilly tried to withdraw her arm.

'About Robbie?'

'Oh no,' Tamsin said. She was smiling. 'Not him. About my job. Mr Mundy told me my job is safe. Quite safe, he said. No more money just now, but more responsibility. He said the partners felt they were lucky to have me.'

Dilly twitched her arm free. She thought of her phone, and its message. She remembered Tamsin in her headphones, being all lah-di-dah and self-important.

She said nastily, 'He just meant cheap at the price,' and then she broke into a run, to get down the hill ahead of Tamsin, to get home first.

She found Chrissie and Amy in the kitchen, looking at pictures on Chrissie's digital camera. The atmosphere was a bit weird and there was a teapot on the table and a jug of sad purple flowers. They both glanced up when she came in, and she was conscious of being breathless and interestingly redolent of drama. She flung her bag on the floor and her sungla.s.ses on the table.

'We were just,' Chrissie said, trying to avoid a reaction to Dilly's entrance, 'looking at pictures of a flat I saw.'

Dilly glanced at the camera. The room it showed could have been anywhere, white and empty with a dark carpet. She said, in a rush, 'You won't believe-'

'What?'

Dilly plunged her hand into her pocket and pulled out her phone, thrusting it at her mother. Chrissie peered at it.

'What does this mean?'

'You look!' Dilly shouted at Amy.

Amy bent over the phone.

'Oh my G.o.d-'

'What?' Chrissie said.

'Oh my G.o.d,' Amy said, 'the s.h.i.t, the s.h.i.t, how could he?' She launched herself at Dilly, wrapping her arms round her shoulders. Dilly closed her eyes.

'Please,' Chrissie said, 'what is happening?'

'He's dumped me!' Dilly cried.

'He's-'

'Craig has dumped Dilly!' Amy said. 'He hasn't the nerve to do it to her face so he's sent her this pathetic text!'

Chrissie stood up. She moved to put her arms round Dilly too.

'Oh, darling-'

The front door slammed, and Tamsin appeared in the doorway.

'Don't you want to kill him?' Amy demanded.

'He's not worth it.'

'No, Dill, he's not worth it, he's not worth crying over, not for a second-'

'I'm not crying,' Dilly said.

Chrissie stepped back.

'Nor you are-'

'I want to,' Dilly said, 'I'm waiting to. But I'm not.' She glanced at Tamsin. 'Maybe it's having such a fantastically supportive sister.'