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wondered, where would she have learned to love? Where would he, if not for her? Precious little came from Stella, precious little of anything at all.
    The first Dodie knew of Seth was more than sixteen years ago when she’d heard Stella vomiting. She’d crept to the bathroom door and called, ‘Are you OK?’ but there was no answer and the bathroom door stayed locked. A few months later she’d noticed, as Stella turned away from the sink, anew bulk round her middle. Nothing was ever said. And then one day when she returned from school, Aunt Regina and Kathy were there. It was a sunny afternoon and there were roses on the draining board and the incongruously friendly smell of baking cake.
    â€˜You’ve got a little brother!’ Aunt Regina said. She was a frail old lady by then, about half the size of the big square Kathy, who never said much, but lurked threateningly in doorways.
    â€˜Can I see him?’ Dodie asked, after she’d hugged Aunt Regina and been praised for having grown.
    â€˜Course you can.’
    They’d gone upstairs where Stella lay back against her pillows, her face strained and sweaty-looking.
    â€˜Don’t disturb him,’ she said.
    Dodie leaned over the tiny tucked-up shape in the Moses basket. His head was fluffed with black and he had the most perfect little nose, very definite, and eyebrows like tiny rows of feather-stitching. As soon as she saw him she adored him. She wasn’t like that even with Jake – some of Stella’s darkness had got into her by then. But with Seth there was no complication; she’d been simply, immediately, swept away with love.
    â€˜Can I hold him?’ she said.
    â€˜He
is
stirring,’ Aunt Regina said. Stella shrugged and turned her face to the wall while Dodie picked him up and held him to her chest, breathing in the yeasty, newborn smell. And after that, she gave him all the love he needed. He would reach for Dodie before Stella and, rather than minding, this seemed to give Stella a grim sort of satisfaction. Though it made her too tired to work properly at school, Dodie would be the one to get up and change the nappies, give him his bottle; and even after she was sixteen and had left home, she’d made sure to take Seth out every weekend, to give him treats and fun.
    Once, when Seth was about two, there’d been a rare flicker from Stella, a moment approaching closeness. Seth had said something sweet and funny and Stella had smiledand met her eyes. They’d been sipping tea on the back doorstep while Seth played with a toy tractor. It was almost companionable, almost normal, and Dodie had dared to ask Stella who Seth’s father was, and instead of telling her to mind her own business, Stella muttered: ‘No one you know. Besides he’s dead.’
    Dodie was almost afraid to breathe. It was like spotting a rare shy creature in a wood. Stella flicked her a glance, scared-looking – with those strange pale eyes. She’d wrapped her hair so tightly round her fingertip it had gone dark with trapped blood.
    â€˜How?’ Dodie had whispered.
    â€˜Car crash.’
    â€˜When?’
    Stella’s face dragged down then, the thin lips bending like an iron bar, a fierce brightness skinning over her eyes. ‘What’s the use of raking it all up?’ she’d said, and got up and gone inside. That was the closest they’d ever got to intimacy; the only time Stella came close to opening up to her. Dodie had almost been able to smell her grief for this mystery man – maybe American? – who must have snuck in during the night. Did he die immediately or did he live to see Seth? Had he ever visited? Sent money? Maybe he’d been married? Maybe, maybe, maybe.
    A wave of pity for Stella threatens to swamp her:
two
men killed in accidents – no wonder she was so screwed up.
    She opens her eyes as they round the corner into Lexicon Avenue, past the letterbox, past the