Chapter 24: The Kettle

The bandage came off on a Saturday in October, and the arm underneath was pink and shiny and a little crinkled.

Tilly held it up to the kitchen window to see it in the light.

"It looks like a map," she said.

"Of where?" said Posy, who had stayed over and now sat on the table in her pyjamas, swinging her legs.

"Of the place where I was brave."

"You're allowed to be brave and cry," said Posy, who had been told this by three separate adults and meant to use it.

Rafe stood at the sink in his shirtsleeves, filling the big iron kettle.

Beside him a stool had been dragged up, and Tilly climbed onto it.

I watched from the table with my hands round my cup.

The court's welfare report had come back on Thursday.

Posy would live with Cressida and spend every other weekend and every Sunday with her father, with handovers at his mother's door.

Cressida had read it in her solicitor's office and signed without speaking.

She had gone to her sister's in the north and not rung once.

Rafe had sat on the cottage step with the letter for a long time.

Then he had come in and chopped onions for Bridie until she told him to stop.

Now he held the kettle by the handle, and looked at Tilly.

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