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‘You were at Mémé’s.’
‘Why was I at Mémé’s and not you?’
‘Because she didn’t have room for us. And because Fitz was too smelly.’
‘I didn’t like it when you left me at Mémé’s. I used to cry.’
‘I know you did. I know you did, baby. And I hated leaving you there. But we didn’t have many options back then. We were in as bad a place as it’s possible to be.’
‘Worse than now?’ asks Marco.
He watches his mother’s reaction carefully, needing to understand exactly how bad things are.
‘In some ways, yes,’ she replies. ‘When you are a parent, not being able to feed your child is just about the worst, most soul-destroying thing imaginable. And now I can feed you. I can clothe you. I can give you warm beds to sleep in—’
‘But they’re not our beds.’
Marco sees his mother breathe in sharply. ‘No. Not your beds. Your beds are waiting for you in England.’
‘But even those aren’t our real beds.’
‘No. Your real beds are in a furniture shop waiting for us to buy them and put them in the house I’m going to buy when we get back.’
‘But we haven’t got a house to put them in.’
‘Well, actually, that’s not entirely true. Theremightbe a house to put them in when we get home. I put an offer in on a house last week. It was accepted. I’m waiting to hear back from the estate agent about getting surveys done. That kind of thing. But if everything goes according to plan, we might be moving in by the end of the summer. Maybe even earlier.’
‘What sort of house is it?’ asks Stella.
‘It’s an old house.’
‘Urgh,’ says Marco. ‘I hate old houses.’
‘I know you do. But I promise you a very large budget for your bedroom to make it as white and modern and featureless as you like.’
‘Will I have my own bathroom?’
‘Yes, you’ll have your own bathroom.’
Marco remembers the tiny, mouldy shower room at the bottom of their corridor in Giuseppe’s building in Nice that they had had to share with two other families. He remembers the feeling of hisstomach rumbling at night with no food in it. He remembers his sister’s feet in his face every morning in the bed all three of them had once shared. He remembers the cold of the pavement through the yoga mat in the city squares where they’d once spent every night while his mum busked for the tourists. And then he thinks of the last year of his life, which has been so perfect, from the moment he first laid eyes on his sister, Libby, and his Uncle Henry, from the moment they first walked into Henry’s beautiful apartment with its silken sheets and marshmallow mattress toppers, security panels and plasma-screen TVs, its computerised fridge full of fresh food, double-glazed windows that stoppered the room from the noises outside, cats that lived on cushions and beds, not on street corners, steamy showers that tumbled water like tropical downpours heated to forty degrees. For a whole year Marco has had a place to be, a family, friends he can bring home, freedom to explore, regular meals, new clothes, warmth and shelter and security. And now, here, on this Chicago street, Marco discovers that his life is about to change yet again and it feels once more like a thing that teeters helplessly on a tightrope over a crevasse.
