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her inbox, Marianna came in, and they exchanged awkward conversation for a previously unheard-of length of three minutes. How are, where have, did you, and, here we are. Three minutes to establish that nothing in their working relationship had changed, or needed to change. Then back to the silence in which they were both most comfortable.
    The phone rang ten minutes later.
    ‘Lily Emmett.’
    ‘Lils! Richard said you were going back to work today.’
    Lily didn’t respond, but shifted the receiver to rest between her ear and her shoulder, so that she could continue typing while Connie spoke.
    ‘How are you feeling?’
    ‘Yes, fine, thank you. And you?’
    ‘Fine. Well, you know, not fine , obviously not. I know you’re not either. We should meet up soon. The kids would like to see more of you, and of course Nathan…’
    ‘I’m at work.’
    ‘I didn’t mean now .’ Deliberately missing the point. ‘Look, Lils, there’s stuff we need to talk about. I was wondering if we could do dinner.’
    ‘Mmm.’
    ‘Don’t just make noises at me. What does that mean? Does it mean yes?’
    ‘Yes. Of course. When?’
    ‘When are you free?’
    Lily was momentarily confused. ‘Um. Always?’
    ‘Oh, Lily, don’t make it sound like that.’ A pause, for Lily to speak, but she couldn’t think of a single thing to say. ‘How about tomorrow, then?’
    ‘Yes. Fine. At your house?’
    ‘Yes. Bring Richard.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Good. See you tomorrow, then. Take care.’
    ‘Yes.’ A pause, before Lily remembered, and started to say ‘you too’, but Connie was already gone; a tiny click followed by an endless and impenetrable buzz.

then
    ‘I still don’t understand why we couldn’t all spend Christmas together.’
    Connie was slouched in the back seat of the car, feet resting high on the seat in front of her, roughly in line with her mother’s shoulder-blades. Her mother stared out of the window and did a very good impression of not being able to hear anything. Every now and then she lifted a hand, to rub a clear patch in the condensation on the window; otherwise she was motionless.
    ‘Your grandfather was ill,’ Marcus said, his voice stubbornly calm. He was staring straight ahead, watching where he was going, and all Connie could see were his eyes in the mirror, dark and strangely expressionless. ‘It wouldn’t have been nice, to barge in on them when he wasn’t feeling well.’
    ‘They could have come to us,’ Connie said. She was aware she was being petulant. They’d been having the same argument all morning.
    ‘Yes, they could have done, but they didn’t want to and it would have made things difficult – ’
    ‘You mean Lily didn’t want to.’
    ‘Lily hasn’t said a word on the subject,’ Marcus said. Connie glared at him in the mirror. ‘Sorry. Bad time to try to be funny, I suppose.’
    ‘It would help if you were actually funny.’
    ‘Yes, I suppose it would.’ Marcus sighed, tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel as he slowed the car to a stopat the end of a queue. ‘Anyway, it’s nothing to do with Lily. It was me and your grandmother who made the decision, really.’
    ‘And no one else,’ her mother said pointedly.
    ‘I asked you whether you wanted to go for Christmas, Anna – ’
    ‘And I said I didn’t want to go at all . And yet, here I am.’ Anna was still staring out of the window, her voice utterly expressionless. Connie shifted further down in her seat, trying to make herself inconspicuous.
    ‘What, you’d rather not see Lily at all?’
    ‘That’s not what I meant.’
    ‘Well, that’s basically what you said, isn’t it?’
    Anna shrugged. The car juddered slightly as it waited to resume its movement. Outside, ahead of them in the queue, someone was honking their horn. Connie tilted her head to peer through the gap between the seats, trying to see what was causing the hold-up, but she was slouched too low to see anything but dashboard and sky.
    Christmas had