roofless walls bleakly angled. The corrugated frame of a larger building with a domed roof was visible beyond the stables. That must have been the barn where the fire started. One of Jack’s stipulations was that the girls were not to go near the ruins in case they collapsed. They nodded glumly when Sophy reminded them that the stables and barn were out of bounds.
‘Let’s forget about a hot meal for tonight,’ she said when the smoke had cleared and they returned to the kitchen. ‘I’ll make sandwiches instead?’
‘Can me and Cordelia have cheese and onion crisp sandwiches?’ Julie had taken the mannequin from the hall and settled her into a rocking chair by the stove. ‘They’re our best favourite food.’
‘I want proper food,’ Isobel snapped. ‘I’m not going to sleep in the same bed as Julie if she smells like a stinking onion.’
Sophy sucked in her cheeks and buttered bread. Losing her temper was not going to help matters. She was weary of arguments. Weary of understanding her daughters’ grief, worries, loss. So many emotions expressed, and she had listened to them, determinedly positive, while she battled her own inner conflict. Selling her boutique and then her house, the proceeds of both running like water through her fingers, had numbed her too much to feel true pain but it swept over her now, raw and raging against the circumstances that had led them here.
‘Don’t start arguing again,’ she said. ‘We’re all tired after our long journey. Everything will work out if we just give it time.’
‘No! It won’t.’ Isobel smashed her fists off the table. ‘You know it won’t get better, not in a million years. We can’t stay here. It’s horrible. I don’t want to live with The Rec— with Mr Hyland. There has to be another way. There has to be.’
‘What do you suggest we do, Isobel? Where will we go?’ Sophy stared at the blisters rising on her hand.
‘You’re crying.’ Isobel made it sound like an accusation. ‘You’re crying yet you keep pretending everything’s going to be all right.’
‘It’s all your fault, Issy Kingston!’ Julie yelled. ‘You keep spoiling our exciting new adventure. Cordelia hates you—’
‘Cordelia is a fucking dummy—’
‘You said a curse.’ Julie rose on her toes with self-righteous shock. ‘Mammy, Issy said the F word.’
‘Stop it this instant, both of you,’ Sophy shrieked. ‘I’m tired listening to the pair of you bickering. You never stopped for the entire journey and I won’t put up with it for a moment longer. Do you hear me? Eat your sandwiches then go to your bedroom and unpack.’
‘I’m never going to unpack—’
‘You heard me, Isobel. Do what you’re told for once. I don’t want to hear another word out of either of you for the rest of the night. Is that understood?’
Isobel, her eyes downcast, bit hard into a sandwich and nodded.
‘Don’t worry, Mammy.’ Julie leaned her elbows on the table and cupped her face in her hands. ‘This is going to be the best adventure ever.’
‘I know it is, my darling.’ Sophy released her breath, in and out, deep and slow.
When the girls were asleep, she entered her bedroom and loosened her hair, allowed it to fall to her shoulders. She stared at her reflection in the dressing table mirror. Tears had traced furrows on her soot-stained cheeks and her eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep. Too tired to undress, she lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. A series of faint cracks radiated across the once-white surface. She watched the slow sway of a cobweb hanging from the lampshade. How long had that dreary, grey smear been suspended above the bed? Decades, probably. Sounds reached her from the bedroom next door. The thump of something falling – a book, perhaps. Books had become Isobel’s defence, her weapon of choice to keep her parents at bay. Sophy considered going in to check on her. She would gather her eldest daughter into her arms and reassure her that everything was going to be okay. A wasted effort. At fourteen years of age, Isobel recognised a lie when she heard one, but Sophy continued to repeat the same platitudes every time they discussed their future. What else could she do? Isobel might demand the truth but did she want to hear it? No, Sophy decided. Reality needed to be doled out in bearable doses.
The high pitch of Julie’s voice reached her. The sound of the voice that Julie used when practising her ventriloquism skills set Sophy’s