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it this time. It would be easier on both of us in the long term, I reasoned, if we left it just a little while longer.
    â€˜She did send her love, though,’ I told him.
    Which was true. Elaine thought my parents were fantastic. ‘They’re so real ,’ she’d say, ‘unlike mine who are sooooooo fake .’ Elaine’s dad worked in construction and her mum worked in a bank. They lived in New Jersey and we didn’t see much of them, not even in the holidays. At Christmas even though we’d split up, Elaine and I spent the whole day alone together in our apartment. Christmas dinner was left-over Chinese and sixteen bottles of Budweiser.
    â€˜That’s good,’ said my dad, visibly cheered. ‘She’s a good girl, Elaine.’
    â€˜Yeah, Dad, she is,’ I replied, and we exchanged smiles. ‘Now, is there any chance that I can come in?’
    As my mum wasn’t home yet I was spared having to explain Elaine’s absence so I took my bags up to my old bedroom while my dad rustled up a cup of tea. Over that and a chocolate digestive my dad and I summed up what was going on in our lives in exactly four sentences:
    Sentence one: How are you?
    Sentence two: Not too bad.
    Sentence three: And yourself?
    Sentence four: Can’t complain.
    Pleasantries out of the way, the conversation after that centred on the weather, the state of the nation, recent developments in English football and the rest of the Beckford family. At twenty-nine I was the oldest of my siblings. After me were Yvonne and Tony, known in these parts as ‘the twins’, who were twenty-seven. Yvonne was doing her second degree at Edinburgh University, having decided after five years of medical school that she didn’t want to be a doctor after all. Tony was living in Nottingham, cultivating a borderline alcohol problem while occasionally drumming in a band called Left Bank. The baby of the family was Ed. He was twenty-two, taking a year out after university to travel around Thailand before committing himself to the world of work. As a family we weren’t exactly close – in the sense that we were all terrible at keeping in regular touch with each other – but we always knew that if any of us ever needed help or support it would be there without question.

ten
    â€˜You should’ve told me you were coming.’
    These were the first words my mum said to me when she arrived home mid-afternoon from the supermarket. Not ‘Hello’. Not ‘How are you?’ But ‘You should’ve told me you were coming.’ Like my dad, my mum liked to do her share of pointing out the obvious, no matter how annoying. I nodded and smiled because I knew that in her own way this was her biggest, fattest, sloppiest ‘I’ve missed you, son.’
    â€˜I know, Mum,’ I said remorsefully, and kissed her cheek. ‘You’re right, I should’ve told you I was coming.’
    â€˜I didn’t get any extra food in,’ she said indignantly.
    I glanced at the four huge shopping-bags on the floor at her feet with a wry smile. ‘It’s okay, Mum,’ I reassured her. ‘I don’t eat much, these days.’
    â€˜ And I haven’t cleaned your room,’ she protested.
    â€˜The bedroom’s spotless, Mum.’
    â€˜I suppose it is,’ she conceded, secretly pleased. ‘Elaine will think we live in a pig-sty.’
    â€˜No, she won’t, Mum,’ I said quietly, ‘because she’s not here.’
    â€˜Where is she?’
    â€˜She couldn’t make it,’ I explained. ‘She would’ve loved to come but she couldn’t get the time off.’
    â€˜You should be with Elaine,’ she said. ‘What if she needs you?’
    â€˜She’ll be fine,’ I said. Despite her protests, I could tell mum was over the moon at having her first-born back. She just wanted to make it clear that she liked things done in a