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Amber Baby
’ on the insect’s belly and had been immediately adopted by the Davenports. Christy, who could not imagine Joe even
saying
‘Christy Baby’, much less having it engraved on a charm for her, though she knew exactly the type of woman who inspired the immortalization of intimate nicknames on trinkets she then discarded without a care. A different species altogether from her. ‘I’ll send the key ring on with the mail,’ she had told him, though she already had the faint suspicion that she was going to keep it.
    ‘Expensive tastes? You can say that again,’ said Joe’s mother. ‘I haven’t seen
those
taps in B&Q, have you? And what’s the bath made of?’
    ‘Copper,’ Christy supplied. ‘A vintage Mexican tub, the agent said.’
    ‘Who on earth would think to import a bath from
Mexico
?’ her mother asked.
    ‘Amber Baby,’ Joe and Christy chorused. ‘Insane, isn’t it?’ Christy added.
    Even so, the insanity was surprisingly infectious. Standing in front of the mirror an hour earlier, she had found herself scrutinizing her discreetly pencilled eyes (‘honest brown’ was probably the most generous description of them, though they were not without a sparkle of theirown) and sprouting dark roots with a vanity that was both uncharacteristic and – she would be the first to admit it – unwarranted. She’d even stood on tiptoe and straightened her spine; it was as if the Frasers’ mirror demanded proper respect of all whose reflections it granted.
    ‘Well, now we know how the other half live, eh,’ Joe’s father said, a phrase he used more than once that afternoon, exaggerating his accent for effect.
    ‘Yes, and apparently it’s without the Internet,’ Joe said. ‘At least it is for the foreseeable future. We’ve gone back to the nineties.’
    ‘We’re using a different supplier from the Frasers,’ Christy explained, thinking, For different read cut-price, ‘and I can’t get them to come out here for three weeks.’ Forty-five minutes she’d been held in the helpline queue the previous Tuesday morning, carefully avoiding Laurie’s eye when she patrolled, only to be told that an express service would incur a surcharge. Regular (slow) service was going to have to do. ‘Joe goes back to work tomorrow and I’m here on my own for a week,’ she added. ‘I’m quite looking forward to being cut off from the world.’
    The group meandered into the garden. After a dim, overcast morning the sun had found a fault line in the cloud cover, causing them to screw up their eyes and make visors of their hands, cavers emerging from the underworld. Early spring in a well-tended garden, what a picture of new hope it was: the gleaming close-shorn lawn, the clutch of trees (identified by Christy’s mother as blackthorns) heavy with blossom, the pale flagstones gilded with sunlight. The four parents strolled the length of thepath like visiting dignitaries on a town-twinning scheme, and peeked in turn through the gate into the park, surprising a spaniel sniffing on the other side.
    ‘The people before had young children, did they?’ her mother said, motioning to the set of swings.
    ‘I don’t think they did,’ Christy said. ‘At least there were no kids’ bedrooms when we looked around. The swings must be from the family before them.’
    Her mother nodded, unconvincingly casual. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t bother tearing out something like that if there’s a fair chance you’d be needing it yourself at some point.’
    ‘You have to pour concrete,’ Joe’s father agreed. ‘It’s a right palaver.’
    Though she chose not to look, Christy had no doubt the elders were exchanging glances, united in their expectations of a grandchild. She knew her own would have decided it was a done deal the moment she and Joe had gone begging for a loan (maybe their generosity had been in good faith: cash for babies!). Certainly the sight now of multiple spare bedrooms, a lawn for kicking a