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once was, especially since I haven’t seen him in nearly eight years.
    Every couple of years I used to send him his tickets, for the flight and a seat in the stalls. Each time we act it out this way: it’s dutiful of me to send for him, generous of him to pretend he is keen to come, essential for us both that the time together is short and that we make no reference to my mother, to Uncle George, or to my never coming anymore to Seaview Villas. I make it easy. We do not meet until after the late finish of the performance in the evening and then it’s just a drink before his taxi back to a slightly less than convenient hotel, and I always put him on an early flight home. I ring him next day to see that he has got back safely, and then resume the pattern of a short call every three weeks or so. Well, every month. We get quite good at this.
    The last time turns out to be my last season in Antwerp, coincidentally, before my semi-retirement. It’s a bitchy game, opera. And by then it’s a struggle for him, but he still comes. I don’t know what he is expecting—he says nothing about the performance except to ask if I am sure I’m in it as he didn’t quite manage to spot me. He has never liked opera. I don’t try to get him over after that. He isn’t up to it anymore, and anyway by this time I am concentrating on building up my pupil numbers. Maybe I could come to see him, and we mumble about this on the telephone from time to time, but I tend to stay close to base and in touch with the opera house in case I’m needed at short notice. Disasters do happen! After all I do have the repertoire and they asked me to step in as Henrietta Maria in
I Puritani
once, in 1992.
    I’m on the doorstep, I’m a local resource, use me! I keep telling them. I say, You know you can always call on me in a crisis, I don’t mind short notice.
    I don’t think I manage to make them realise that I don’t object to being rung up at any time.

5
    L ila was stroking one finger through the red paint and wondering if it would come straight off the door with turpentine when Enid arrived. She turned and watched as she freewheeled on her bike through the puddles up the side of the house, feet outstretched and pedals ticking, her small eyes fixed on the doors. She stopped and balanced on one foot, spinning the pedal round with the other. She was wearing pedal pushers made from material patterned with pineapples, and a yellow knitted windcheater. Enid had no hips; the clothes were perfect on her, so light-hearted they made Lila’s heart sink.
    ‘Hiya, what’s all that?’ Enid asked, nodding past her.
    ‘All what?’ Lila said, not looking round.
    ‘That. All that mess.’ Enid turned glassy eyes on Lila and pulled a bag of Parma Violets from her pocket. She poured a few into Lila’s cupped hand then tipped back her head and downed some herself.
    ‘Senga’s away to Filey till Wednesday,’ she said in a gust of violet-scented breath. ‘Senga’s dead nice when you get to know her. What’s the matter with you? What
is
that?’
    ‘That?’ Lila chewed and swallowed. ‘Oh, don’t you know? That’s
Turandot
. It’s an opera. My mother’s playing records.’
    ‘I don’t mean the noise, I mean that. The letters, that all over the door. All that paint.’
    ‘It’s by Puccini. It’s her favourite.’
    ‘Not the noise—that. I’m talking about
that
.’ Already she was preparing to win. Between them, it was always a victory to point out something embarrassing about the other. She leaned forward, peering and sniffing. ‘You’re filthy. You smell all smoky. Have you been crying?’
    ‘Crying?’
Lila said, too strenuously. ‘ ’Course not! No, I was, I was just doing a bonfire. Just a minute ago. My mum—she had rubbish to burn, I was just burning a bit of rubbish. Makes your eyes sting.’ She rubbed them to make the point.
    ‘Stinks, anyway. So what is that—all that mess?’
    Lila turned round. ‘That? That was just an accident