My mother didn’t say anything. Like some sort of living mannequin, she moved jerkily past him into the hall. She paused by one of the half-moon tables, selected a jade figurine from a table and, after a moment, took aim and lobbed it at the opposite wall. With a loud crack, the green head separated from the body and ricocheted into a porcelain vase. Both items smashed on the marble floor, and the sound of the shattering pieces echoed around the hall.
His voice soft, my father said, “There are all sorts of ways to pay for broken vases, my dear.”
My mother glanced at him. She picked up a jade elephant. “Go on, then,” my father said, “do your worst.”
My mother raised the elephant to her shoulder and took aim at the wall. Then she seemed to change her mind. Her eyes moved around the hall. She swiveled her feet until she was facing the black Qing urn.
“You had better deal with me first.” My father’s voice had changed from amusement to quiet fury.
My mother looked at him, then back at the urn. She raised her arm.
“Enough.” My mother lowered her arm. “Let her eat sodding vegetables for all I care. But that’s it, Bianka. I won’t be ordering her anything else.” He turned on his foot and stormed into his study, slamming the door behind him.
Laika had won.
***
I’d always been my father’s Golden Girl. That’s what he called me, as if, alongside my mother, I was not his flesh and blood but simply some sort of prized possession. It was nothing to do with the color of my hair. I’d spent seventeen years doing exactly what I was told. He’d always told us that families were private spaces, that our home lives were never to be discussed with anyone else, full stop. It was, he said, his house, his family, we were his children and his rules applied. But at Robyn’s house I’d seen how families were meant to function, and it wasn’t like ours. Other families didn’t operate like ours at all. Now I started testing him in small ways. Not eating meat was one. I said I’d lost receipts. I rearranged his books and CDs. I answered back. What are you going to do about it, I thought, make me disappear? But nothing worked. I just couldn’t get him to react. Finally I played Frank Zappa in my bedroom at full blast until he stormed in and told me in no uncertain terms to turn that shit off.
A small but satisfying result.
***
The summer before she disappeared, my sister had spent the entire time bugging me to play chess. It was a pretty boring activity as far as I was concerned, because she could beat me hands down.
“Do we have to?” I said, when yet again I saw her setting up the board. “I don’t have the strategy.”
“You’ve got strategy in spades,” she said. “Your problem is that you don’t see the point.”
“What’s the point?”
“Patricide,” she said. “You have zero interest in killing your father.”
***
Work on the conservatory had begun that August. The builder in charge was a taciturn man with flaky red skin called Ian Cox, who, on his first visit to the house, had stood looking at the garden with stony eyes.
“Bloody hell,” he said, “some money round here.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” my mother said to us as the work progressed. “It’s impossible to get a smile out of the man. Po-faced, that’s what he is. He doesn’t even look me in the eye. Perhaps he’s one of those types that doesn’t like women.”
One afternoon Laika and I retreated halfway down the garden. It was hot and we lay in our bikinis in the shade of a laburnum tree with the chessboard between us. Up at the house a mechanical digger began scooping out bucketloads of soil.
I kept half an eye on the chessboard and the other half on our mother as she carried out a tray loaded with mugs and cake. She touched Cox lightly on the arm as she spoke to him, smiling beatifically, as if the builder were some dear old friend, and not just some bloke they’d employed to do a job.
Laika moved her queen. “Do you remember when we were little and Mum made us walk around with books balanced on our heads?”
“It was meant to teach us deportment.”
“Whatever. If I have a daughter, I’m not ever making her do that. Books are for reading.”
A cloud passed under the sun and I sat up and pulled on a jumper.
“Don’t look now,” Laika said as she took my knight. “Deedee’s arrived.”
We watched from a distance. Deedee stood on the terrace gesturing at my mother, the noise from the digger drowning out her words. Then my mother turned and waved at us with both arms, as if marshaling jets.
“Shit,” Laika said, “is there any chance we didn’t see that?”
“Nope.”
We took as long as we could to amble up to the house.
“Dear God,” my mother said. “Laika, put on some clothes. You shouldn’t be parading around like that. We’ve got workmen here.”
“You make it sound like builders are natural-born perverts,” Laika said.
“I’m just saying you’re not children anymore. Anyway, it’s your lucky day. Aunt Deedee has very kindly brought you something.” I could see my mother trying not to smile.
“I’ve been having a bit of a clear-out,” Deedee said, “and I’ve found some very nice bits and pieces from my younger days. Far too good for the charity shop.”
“That’s very kind of you,” I said, leaning on Laika’s foot.
“Gosh, how lovely,” Laika said, “how exceptionally generous.”
Deedee looked pleased. “I’ve left a bag in the hall. I’ll let you girls go and have a rummage, shall I?”
“Thanks, Deedee,” I said. I grabbed Laika’s hand and we turned and walked fast toward the house.
