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someone?’
    Kate shook her head. She took a sip of wine and tried to come to grips with her reaction to Angie’s news. She knew, instinctively, that it was made of many parts but felt as if the wine had blurred each so that they leached into one another. Making them impossible to interpret.
    â€˜I’ve got an idea,’ said Sam, suddenly breaking the silence. He turned to Oscar. ‘Why don’t you and I go and put Buggerlugs here to bed and we’ll watch something till she goes off?’
    Oscar jumped up quickly. ‘Good thinking, mate.’
    â€˜Say goodnight then.’ Sam brought Emma over to Kate and bent down so that she could kiss the baby on her cheek, still sticky with half-dried tears. Then he hoisted Emma up over his shoulder so that her head dangled slightly and the remains of the soggy cracker fell from her mouth and onto the decking. The baby stretched out her hand after it but laughed anyway. Hector watched them go and then wandered over to devour the soggy cracker before crawling underneath the table by Kate’s feet.
    â€˜I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,’ blurted Kate, almost accusingly, before Sam and Oscar had even reached the bungalow. ‘Not even a hint!’
    Angie frowned at her. ‘I don’t know why you’re taking this so personally. It’s not that big a deal, really. So I get a boarder? So what?’
    â€˜Sharing your home’s not a big deal?’
    â€˜Hang on.’ Angie flipped her plait back and stared at her cousin for a few moments. ‘Are you feeling threatened or something?’
    â€˜Don’t be ridiculous.’
    â€˜Then why are you being such a bitch about it?’ Angie spoke mildly, which took some of the sting out of her words. ‘I just want to do something to shake up my life a bit. Help me move on. You do realise that I’m in pain too, don’t you? He wasn’t just my uncle, he was almost a father. And I know nothing will fill that void, but I’m trying to be pro-active. And maybe you should too.’
    â€˜Hang on!’
    â€˜Or at least support me,’ continued Angie as if Kate hadn’t spoken. ‘Acknowledge that I’m making an effort.’
    Kate held Angie’s gaze for a moment and then dropped her eyes until she was staring at the double row of stitching along her neckline. Her chin throbbed. Angie was right. She
knew
Angie was right, but she still couldn’t get past the feeling of resentment, as if she was the one being left behind. And suddenly Kate realised that was
exactly
how she felt. Abandoned in her current state of ambiguity.
    â€˜Listen, Kate –’
    â€˜Shhh, I’m thinking.’ Kate raised her eyes briefly to her cousin’s face before flitting off to stare under the table at the dark mound of Hector. She used her foot to stroke him absentmindedly while she followed her train of thought. And she decided that if Angie had announced the news hesitatingly, as if unsure or needing approval, then she, Kate, would have reacted quite differently. But it was her air of certainty, of decisiveness, that had set her teeth on edge from the very beginning. And why? Well, because she was . . . jealous.
    â€˜Are you not talking to me now?’
    â€˜Of course I’m talking to you.’ Kate frowned as her thought processes fractured, leaving just the one word lit up in neon – jealous. Jealous. JEALOUS.
    â€˜You’ve got a funny way of showing it.’ Angie pushed her chair back so that she was facing Kate full on. ‘Do you want to tell me what’s going on?’
    â€˜Nothing’s going on.’
    Angie put a hand on her cousin’s arm. ‘It’s Uncle James, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Of course not!’ Kate emptied her glass and the wine helped. The slight fuzziness around her periphery had added a kaleidoscope effect, so that whatever she looked at was instantly framed within a mobile