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your stepmother .. . For a brief and glorious moment, she pictured herself doing it, until common sense returned and she remembered her alternatives. Or lack of them. All relationships were built on lies, but desperate men were more likely to believe them. What choice did they have if they didn't want to be lonely?
    Outside, the sunlight gave the uniform council houses a spurious glamour. Inside, Miss Piggy and Jabba were closeted in the front room with all the curtains closed and the television tuned at high volume to one of the music channels. The stench of sausage fat assaulted Laura's nostrils as she let herself in through the front door, and she wondered how many visits they'd made to the kitchen that day. If she had her way, she'd lock them in a cupboard on rations of bread and water until they lost some weight and learnt some manners, but Greg was consumed with guilt about his failings so they got fatter and ruder by the day.
    She peeled off her cotton jacket, replaced her flat shop-assistant's shoes with a pair of mules from under the coat rack, and rearranged her baleful scowl into the vacuous, pretty smile they knew. At least if she went through the motions of caring, there was hope of a change.
    She opened the sitting-room door, poked her nose into hot, stagnant air, ripe with teenage farts, and shouted above the noise: "Have you made your own tea or do you want me to do it?" It was a silly question greasy plates, smeared with tomato ketchup, littered the floor as usual but it made no difference. They wouldn't answer whatever she said.
    Jabba the Hutt, a thirteen-year-old boy with rampant eczema where his double chins chafed his neck, promptly ratcheted up the volume on the set. Miss Piggy, fifteen years old and with breasts like dirigibles turned her back. It was a nightly ritual aimed at freezing out the skinny wannabe stepmother. And it was working. If it weren't for her daughter's easy acceptance "They're OK when we're on our own Mummy'she'd have cut her losses a long time ago. She waited for Jabba to mouth 'fuck off' to the air another routine that never varied before, with relief, she closed the door and headed for the kitchen.
    Behind her, the television was immediately muted. “I'm home, Amy,” she called as she passed the stairs. "What do you want, sweetheart? Fish fingers or sausages?" It was the love they hated, she thought, as she listened for the muttered taunts of "Sweety .. . Sweety .. . Mumsy .. .
    Mumsy .. ." to come from the sitting-room. Terms of endearment made them jealous.
    But for once the teasing didn't happen and, with a flicker of alarm she peered up the stairwell waiting for the rush of boisterous feet as her ten-year-old pounded down the steps to fling herself into her mother's arms. Every time it happened, she persuaded herself she was doing the right thing. Yet the nagging doubts never went away, and when there was no response she knew she'd been deluding herself. She gave another call, louder this time, then took the stairs two at a time and flung open the child's bedroom door.
    Seconds later she burst into the sitting-room. “Where's Amy?” she demanded.
    “Dunno,” said Barry carelessly, flicking up the sound again. "Out, I guess."
    “What do you mean ”out“?”
    “Out ... OUT ... Not fucking in. Jesus! Are you stupid, or what?”
    Laura snatched the remote control from his hand and killed the picture.
    “Where's Amy?” she demanded of Kimberley.
    The girl shrugged. “Round at Patsy's?” she suggested with an upward inflection.
    “Well, is she or isn't she?”
    “How would I know? She doesn't ring in every hour to keep me posted.”
    The panic in the woman's expression persuaded her to stop teasing. "Of course she is."
    Barry shifted uncomfortably on the sofa and Laura swung round to him.
    “What?” she demanded.
    “Nothing.” He gave a shrug. "It's not our fault if she doesn't want to stay with us."
    "Except I'm paying Kimberley to look after her, not pack her