‘I suppose those cameras bought themselves?’ Kitty shakes her head. ‘You don’t know how lucky you were. Your father—’
‘Isn’t here,’ Clara spits.
Cee groans. ‘Clara, do we really have to—?’
‘Stop it, Cee,’ says Clara.
‘Stop it, Cecilia,’ says Kitty, at the same time.
‘I’m not a child,’ Cee barks, hands raised. ‘Don’t talk to me like I’m a child.’
‘Where did we go wrong?’ Kitty says, looking over the table. ‘Not a proper job between the three of you.’
‘I’m a sous chef,’ Cee snaps. ‘Not a fucking pot wash.’
Kitty whips her head towards her. Her glare could burn you to a crisp. ‘Don’t you dare use that language with me.’
Cee sits back, scolded. She folds her arms, tucks her hands beneath her armpits. Harry pats her leg. His own leg is jiggling, and his mouth is dry. On the other side of the table, Seb’s mouth has popped open in something like horror.
‘Perhaps there’s still hope for this one,’ Kitty says, nodding towards Augie with something like tenderness. ‘If you two can keep your claws out of him.’
Augie says nothing. Clara is chewing the inside of her cheek.
‘I have a job,’ Clara says. ‘Not that you’ve ever taken an interest in it.’
‘You have a hobby,’ Kitty says. ‘And we thought you’d have grown out of it by now. If Martin was here—’
‘He’s not dead,’ Clara says with a bitter laugh. ‘He decided not to come.’
Kitty will not be stopped. ‘If Martin was here, he’d ask you how you plan to support a family on whatever pittance you earn from this little vanity project of yours.’
Seb raises an eyebrow.
Clara actually seems speechless for once. She picks at the base of her thumbnail. ‘I’m twenty-five,’ she says, eventually, quietly.
‘And you won’t get any younger,’ Kitty says. ‘I was pregnant at your age. For all the good it did me.’
‘I don’t want—’ Clara begins. Her face has gone red.
‘Clara’s boss thinks very highly of her,’ Seb cuts in.
Harry raises his own eyebrow, now. He’d never stand up to Kitty.
Clara smiles tightly at Seb, as if to say, stay out of this. Then she turns her mother’s fierce gaze back on her. ‘I don’t want your life,’ she says, firmly.
‘Clara,’ says Cee, a warning in her voice.
‘There’s no danger of that,’ Kitty replies, venom seeping into her voice ‘At this rate, I’ll be dead before I’m given any grandchildren.’
‘Even if that’s what I wanted,’ Clara says, ‘why would I let you anywhere near them?’
And that does it. Kitty slams her cutlery down on the table, so hard that everyone jumps. Cee looks at Clara, gives a short shake of her head. Augie sighs into his lap, compromisinghis near-invisibility. Harry has spent the last several minutes playing white noise inside his own head, trying to imagine himself in a happier place. The silence is deafening.
Harry could kiss the waiter who ends it.
‘How’s the food?’ the waiter asks.
Kitty hasn’t touched anything on her plate. Neither has Cee. Harry snorts, holds his nose, tries to turn it into a cough.
