‘Hello,’ Nicola says to Mum. ‘Nicola Alderson.’

As if she’s pierced a bubble, we both deflate.

‘Oh, hi, sorry,’ Mum says, sitting back in her seat and putting on her seat belt. ‘So sorry. How rude of us to – to – I’m so sorry.’

I clear my throat and turn back to the road. My heart is pounding so hard it almost makes me feel breathless, as if it’s working its way up my throat. I’m late to pick up the rest of the bingo lot, now; I turn the key in the ignition and pull away.

… and straight into a bollard.

Fuck. Fuck. I knew that bollard was there, I made a mental note when I parked here – I thought to myself, When you pull away, don’t forget about the bollard that’s just out of your line of sight.

For fuck’s sake.

I leap out of the van and grimace, covering my face with my hands. The bottom right side of the bonnet is badly dented.

‘Actually, no,’ Mum says, jumping out of the van behind me and pulling the door closed with a slam. ‘I’m sick of half-having these sorts of conversations with you. I’m sorry, Nicola, but we’re not done.’

‘That’s all right,’ Nicola calls. ‘I’ll wind the window up, shall I?’

‘How dare you act like I gave up on my daughter?’ Mum says, her fists clenched at her sides.

I’m still processing the dented bonnet. ‘Mum, I—’

‘You didn’t see her day in day out.’ Mum’s voice is climbing. ‘The emergency admissions, the endless, brutal, wrenching vomiting, the times she was so weak she couldn’t make it to the toilet. She put on a brave face when you visited – you never saw her at her worst!’

I let out a small gasp. That hurt. ‘I wanted to be there more.’ My eyes are stinging, I’m going to cry. ‘You know Carla didn’t want me to leave my job, and I – I couldn’t be here all the time, Mum, you know that.’

‘But I was here all the time. I saw it. I felt it, what she felt. I’m her mother.’

Mum’s eyes narrow, catlike, frightening. She’s speaking again before I can respond. The words come spilling out of her in a voice that’s raw and rising and doesn’t sound like my mum.

‘Is this why you left us and cut us out of your life? To punish me, because you think I didn’t try hard enough for Carla? Then let me tell you something, Leena. You cannot imagine how much I wanted your American doctor to be right. You can’t imagine it. Losing Carla has made me wonder what the hell I’m living for every minute of every day, and if there was any way I believed I could have saved my little girl, I would have taken it.’ Her cheeks are wet with tears. ‘But it wouldn’t have worked, Leena, and you know it.’

‘It might have worked,’ I say, pressing my hands against my face. ‘It might.’

‘And what kind of life would Carla have had? It was her choice, Leena.’

‘Yeah? Well, she was wrong too!’ I yell, dropping my hands to my sides, clenching my fists. ‘I hate that she stopped fighting. I hate that you stopped fighting for her. And who are you to say I left you anyway? Who are you to say I cut myself off?’ The emotions are boiling hot and rageful in my belly, and this time I don’t push them down. ‘You fucking disintegrated. I was the one who held it together, I was the one who sorted the funeral and dealt with the paperwork and you fell apart. So don’t talk about me leaving you. Where the fuck were you when I lost my sister? Where the fuck were you?’

Mum backs up slightly. I’m really yelling. I’ve never shouted at anybody like this in my life.

‘Leena …’

‘No,’ I say, swiping at my face with my sleeve and wrenching the driver’s door open. ‘No. I’m done.’

‘You,’ Nicola says, ‘are in no fit state to drive.’

Fingers trembling, I turn the key in the ignition. The van splutters and revs, coming to life. I sit there, staring at the road ahead, feeling completely and utterly out of control.

Nicola opens her door.

I look at her. ‘What are you doing?’ I say, my voice thick with tears.

‘I’m not bloody well letting you drive me anywhere,’ she says.

I open my door too, then, because Nicola can’t climb out of the van without help. My mum is still standing where I left her, her arms folded against herself, fingers wrapped around her ribs. For a moment I want to run to her and let her stroke my hair the way I would when I was a child.

Instead I turn away and help Nicola climb down from the passenger seat. I feel bodily exhausted, as if I’ve spent hours at the gym. The three of us stand there, Mum and me looking this way and that, anywhere but at each other. The wind whistles around us.

‘Righto,’ says Nicola. ‘So.’

More silence.

‘No?’ Nicola says. ‘Nobody’s going to say anything?’

The idea of saying anything seems entirely beyond me. I stare at the tarmac, my hair drawing wet trails on my cheeks.

‘I don’t know anything about your family,’ Nicola says, ‘but what I do know is that it’s about to start chucking it down and we’re going to be stood here like lemons in the middle of the road until Leena’s calm enough to drive, so the sooner we can sort all this out the better.’

‘I’m calm,’ I say. ‘I’m calm.’

Nicola gives me a sceptical look. ‘You’re shaking like a leaf and there’s mascara on your chin,’ she says.

Mum moves then, holding one hand out. ‘Give me the keys, I’ll drive.’

‘You’re not insured.’ I hate how my voice sounds, all wobbly and weak.

Mum steps towards us as a bus turns the bend and heads our way.

‘Well, I’ll call the insurance people then,’ she says.

‘I’m not sure I fancy you driving any better than her,’ Nicola says, looking my mother up and down.

‘Bus,’ I say.

‘Hmm?’ says Nicola.

I point, then wave an arm, then wave both arms. The bus comes to a stop.

‘Flipping heck,’ says the driver as she pulls up alongside us. ‘What happened here? Are you all all right? Has there been a crash?’

‘Only in a symbolic sense, dear,’ Nicola says, already getting on. ‘You’re stable, then, are you? Not about to start blubbering?’

‘Umm, I’m all right, ta?’ says the driver.

‘Good, good. In you get then, ladies. Off we go.’

*

Mum and I end up sitting across the aisle from one another, each looking straight ahead. I settle slowly in the bus seat, tears easing. Blowing my nose seems to make me feel a lot better, like it’s a formal end to all the crying, and as we wind our way towards Hamleigh, that terrifying sense of being out of my own control eases away, loosening the tightness in my ribs and the pounding in my throat.

I’m not entirely sure what just happened, really, but there’s not a lot of time to dwell on it now – the bus driver is kindly taking a detour from her usual route to drop us in the village, but even so, we’re late.

The bingo regulars are gathered at the corner of Peewit Street and Middling Lane, in front of the village shop; the rain started coming down a few minutes ago and most of the gang are only half visible inside enormous mackintoshes and rainproof ponchos.