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transcribe the result. ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ I said, and I think I just managed to get the word that out in time before she slammed the phone down on me.
    I sighed. Yes, I could call her back; and she’d tell her dad she didn’t want to talk to me ever again, and he’d have the embarrassment of relaying the message, and I’d have the embarrassment of saying, Well, thanks anyway . (Because you’ve got to be polite, haven’t you?) That’d be bad, and not calling her back would probably be even worse. I was toying with the idea of writing her a letter (‘Dear Cru, You’ll never guess what happened, I was just about to ring you back when an asteroid landed in the lane outside and smashed the telegraph pole into matchwood . . .) when the door flew open, and there was Daddy George, looking like Grendel after a hard day at the office.
    â€˜What the bloody hell are you doing in my study?’ he said.
    It was one of those questions you wish people wouldn’t insist on asking, since it’s obvious to all parties that anything you say is going to make matter worse, even if it’s only ‘Um . . .’ Which was precisely what I did say, as it happens.
    â€˜I thought I told you,’ he went on, giving me a look you could’ve carried out surgery with, ‘never to come in here without my permission. Well?’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said, feeling I couldn’t really go wrong if I stuck to the plain facts. ‘Yes, you did say that.’
    â€˜So what in God’s name do you think you’re doing in here?’
    Facts. Tell the truth and shame the devil. ‘Using the phone,’ I replied. ‘Only, I couldn’t use the one in the living room because everyone’s in there, and I can’t hear . . .’
    He’d quickly gone from angry to intrigued. ‘Who’re you phoning, then? You never use the phone.’
    Which was mainly true. ‘Oh, just a friend,’ I replied.
    â€˜Bullshit. You haven’t got any friends.’
    Also mainly true, except for one, assuming she was still talking to me, which was by no means certain. ‘Someone from school,’ I said.
    â€˜Really? Someone from school.’ His monstrous swathe of eyebrows swept together; on a still day you could probably have heard the rustling in the next room. ‘And this call to this someone from school’s so bloody important that on Christmas Day you’ve got to sneak away from our guests and break into my study—’
    â€˜Um, yes,’ I interrupted. ‘It’s my girlfriend, you see, and—’
    He blinked five times, very rapidly. ‘You’ve got a girlfriend ?’ he said, making it sound as if I’d just claimed I’d found the holy grail at the bottom of a cornflakes packet. ‘Since when?’
    â€˜Since the start of last term, actually,’ I replied. ‘Her na—’ I caught myself just in time. “I promised I’d ring her today, just to, you know, say Happy Christmas. But I didn’t want to call from downstairs, with everybody listening . . .’
    He scowled thoughtfully at me for two seconds, then shrugged. ‘Well, fuck me,’ he said. ‘Wonders will never cease. So what’s she like, then, this bird of yours?’
    He was letting me scramble past him onto the moral high ground, of course, but I don’t suppose he cared. ‘She’s not my bird,’ I said huffily. ‘And that’s a rather derogatory expression, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
    He grinned. ‘Get stuffed,’ he said. ‘Go on, I’m interested. What’s wrong with her, then? Fat? Spots? Embarrassing body odours?’
    No, but she’s got a really freaky name. ‘Nothing’s wrong with her,’ I snapped back, trying to sound bitterly offended and upset. Which I was, of course, but I was also