vase on the table by the window. How wonderful to have the scent of flowers and not some man’s smelly trainers. This lovely room, with its glorious view towards the creek, the sea and the tinyoffshore island beyond the first estuary beach, was going to be her private haven for the duration. Clare – when trying to get the teenage Miranda to clear up her room – had once quoted to her from Shirley Conran’s Superwoman : ‘Never come back to an unmade bed’, and even during her most rebellious phase it had lodged in her mind. She might be a long, long way from obsessively houseproud, but when she needed space to escape to, the last thing she wanted was to open the door and find it depressingly scruffy.
But downstairs it was a different story. How, she wondered as her sequinned Havaianas crunched over toast crumbs on the kitchen floor, did a mere two children manage to make such a mess in such a short time? Mugs were on the worktop, resting in puddles of sticky spilled coffee. More plates, dishes and knives than could possibly be justified by a few slices of toast and a bit of cereal were drowned in a sink full of cold, grey scummy water with a scrunched-up J-cloth floating on top. The dishwasher was only inches away. Did they, Miranda asked herself, think it opened with a magic key that only a grown-up could be trusted with? As she opened the larder door, pulled a loaf of bread from the shelf and put two slices into the toaster, she resolved to be more assertive when it came to shared chores. Bo and Silva were not to be allowed to take after their bone-idle dad.
‘What are we doing today? Can we just hang out bythe pool here or have we got to … er … y’know, do the Granddad thing?’ Silva came in through the utility room door in her blue and white stripy bikini, dripping water and rubbing a towel across her wet hair.
‘I hadn’t really thought about it yet,’ Miranda told her after a moment or two of considering the options. Beach? It was already pretty sunny out there. Were Bo and Silva too old for simply messing about on the sand, or was her mother right – that they’d missed out on the bucket and spade stage and might quite enjoy (though pretending it was beneath them really) some childlike fun in a place where none of their so-cool friends would see them.
‘I think I’d better ask your gran,’ she decided. ‘I thought she’d say something last night about what she wanted to do about Jack’s ashes but she didn’t mention it and we were all so knackered from the journey that it didn’t seem right to put any pressure on her. She’s not up yet, so we’ll have to wait and see.’
‘No, Mum, she is up. She’s in the garden pulling up random weeds just like this was her own place.’ Silva suddenly sniffed the air like a cat. ‘I smell toast. Can I have some?’
‘You can. Though I see you already have. Or did the elves come in the night and make this mess?’ Miranda started spreading her own toast with honey. No butter. She was sure her middle was starting to spread(should that happen before you were even forty ?) and she wanted to let it know that this wasn’t allowed.
‘Must have been Bo,’ Silva said, shrugging off all responsibility and looking in the larder for the bread Miranda had just put away. ‘Gran’s been up ages and down to the sea and she’s swum out to the little island and back. She said we should have gone with her but I said what’s the point of freezing in the sea when you’ve got a lovely warm pool right here.’
‘She has? Already? And hey, put that bread back once you’ve finished with it, please.’ Miranda glanced at the giant station-style clock on the wall. It was only just after nine. Maybe Clare couldn’t sleep. Once again she wondered if this trip had been the best idea. After she’d had her breakfast she’d go and check the back of the car, see if the urn had been taken out and brought to somewhere in the house. It wasn’t in the kitchen, though