My mother answered on the 2nd ring. She never answers on the 2nd ring.
"If this is about the photograph, I have seen it."
"Mum."
"Mrs Kaur from number 14 showed me on her iPad yesterday before your Nathan rang. She has printed it off." A cupboard door, and a cup going down. "She is going to frame it. She says it is the best photograph anybody has ever taken of me, and I have to agree with her. I look very well in that hat."
"There is a policeman coming round this morning."
"He has been. He had 2 sugars and told me about his daughter's netball." She blew on her tea. "And there is a car at the end of the road with 2 of them in it that I did not ask for, and Sheila keeps taking them biscuits."
"I can send somebody up from the club."
"You can send nobody up from the club. I lived on this road 30 years before anybody knew who you were, Daniel, and I will be living on it when they have forgotten." She stopped. "Are they still saying it? On the phones?"
"Some of them."
