There’s the noise of someone arriving: James’s mum, red-faced and breathless. ‘Sorry,’ she calls to me.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘He’s been helping me.’
James goes pink and his mum smiles, kisses his head and bundles him off.
Then the office phone rings and it’s Courtney’s grandmother full of apologies and promising to be there in five minutes.
The first chance I get to call Tom is after tea. We haven’t spoken since the day we took Lori to the airport.
‘It’s all a bit last-minute,’ I say to him. ‘Anyway, can you transfer the money?’
‘Sure, there’s a place up the road does it nowadays,’ he says. ‘Have you been reading her blog?’
‘Yes. You heard anything else about this Dawn?’
‘Only what she said in the email.’
I wonder if Dawn is more than just a friend but don’t particularly want to speculate with Tom. Lori’s impulsiveness sometimes extends to relationships. She falls hard and fast and can get hurt. The worst was a girlfriend she had at school. Saskia went on to a different sixth form and broke up with Lori soon after. Lori messed up that school year and had to repeat it. There were a couple of relationships at uni but they seemed fairly casual. As if she was protecting herself from anything too deep.
‘Be strange not seeing her at Christmas,’ I say.
Tom grunts.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing fixed yet,’ he says. ‘Got a couple of offers.’
Of course he has. He’s never short of friends, or invitations. I don’t know if he’s seeing anyone new – Lori used to keep me up to date and the last I heard, in July, he’d broken up with his latest girlfriend. I don’t know if Tom will ever settle down. He has lived with a few women since we were together but never for very long. I don’t know whether that’s something he hankers after or not. We’re just not that close any more.
We Skype Lori on Christmas Day. Isaac is exhausted – he’s been up since four, desperate for his big presents. I sent him back to bed but he didn’t sleep. We’ve had our ritual opening and the boys clutch their gifts to show Lori. Finn has a mini-scooter and Isaac another Lego kit, City Coast Guard Patrol.
‘Hi, guys.’ She waves. She looks relaxed: she has a turquoise vest on and cargos, her hair is shorter – the pink has gone – and she’s sitting on a single bed. I can see the metal bars of the headboard.
The lag between speaking and hearing adds to the chaos of four people trying to talk to one.
Lori makes a fuss of the boys, responding with appropriate excitement to their presents. Isaac wants to list all of his, including the trinkets in his stocking, but Finn keeps butting in. Eventually Isaac loses it, shouts and shoves his brother off his chair.
